April 9 (Bloomberg) -- Royal Dutch Shell Plc, BP Plc and other energy companies would have to disclose projects’ carbon liabilities under an ecology proposal sent to the U.K.

WWF-UK and The Co-operative Financial Services sent an appeal urging Britain’s Parliament to approve new legislation requiring emission disclosure so that investors can fully assess risks for projects such as the development of Canadian tar sands, the groups said.

“Carbon-intensive industries and those who invest in them will face ever-increasing carbon costs,” David Norman, WWF-UK’s director of campaigns, said today in an e-mailed statement. “Many billions of pounds of U.K. pension assets are currently invested in U.K.-based oil and gas companies.”

Shell, BP, Exxon Mobil Corp. and other oil companies are likely to face higher costs in developing Canada’s tar sands, the biggest oil deposit outside Saudi Arabia, because of efforts to tackle climate change. After 2012, the miners of oil- encrusted sand buried in the swamps of northern Alberta will have to store carbon emissions rather than release them into the atmosphere.

Shell, Europe’s largest oil company, is slowing investment in its Athabasca oil-sand project in northeast Alberta because of lower oil prices. Energy expenses account for about 20 percent to 25 percent of the cost of producing oil from sands, Shell Chief Financial Officer Peter Voser said Jan. 29.

“We see our role as providing more energy and CO2 solutions,” Shell Canada Executive Vice President John Abbott said yesterday in a statement. “We’re also adding our voice to the call for a concerted regulatory framework at the regional, national and global levels that drive down emissions across our industry on a level playing field.”

Delayed Decision

BP, Europe’s second-largest oil company, and Calgary-based Husky Energy Inc. delayed a final decision on an oil-sands investment in Canada for a year because of high industry costs. The partners agreed in 2007 to spend about $5.5 billion through 2015 to bring oil from Alberta’s oil sands to the markets.

Greenhouse gases, blamed for global climate warming, should peak in 2015 and drop 50 percent by 2050 to avert the worst effects of climate change, according to United Nations estimates. Shell forecast that carbon-capture and storage technology known as CCS could cut global carbon dioxide emissions by more than a third by 2050.

To contact the reporter on this story: Eduard Gismatullin in London at egismatullin@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: April 8, 2009 19:01 EDT