Photo: The Canadian Press

Nobel Prize-winning Canadian author Alice Munro attends a ceremony held by the Royal Canadian Mint to celebrate her win where they unveiled a 99.99% pure silver five-dollar coin at the Great Victoria Public Library in Victoria, B.C., Monday, March 24, 2014. Munro is among dozens of Nobel prizewinners urging Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to deny approval to a massive oilsands project in Alberta.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad Hipolito

Canadian author Alice Munro and dozens of other Nobel Prize winners around the world have joined the heated opposition facing a massive oilsands project in northern Alberta, decrying the proposed development as "a disgrace."

Munro, Canadian biologist Jack W. Szostak and 40 other global winners from various fields signed a letter addressed to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland urging them to deny the Teck Resources Ltd. plan, as well as any expansion of the fossil-fuel sector.

"The mere fact that they warrant debate in Canada should be seen as a disgrace," states the letter, which appeared on the Guardian's website Friday.

"They are wholly incompatible with your government's recent commitment to net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050. And with clear infringements on First Nations rights, such projects fly in the face of rhetoric and purported efforts towards reconciliation."

The signatories call fossil-fuel projects "an affront to our state of climate emergency," and say the "importance of leadership in the coming few years cannot be understated."

A decision on the $20.6-billion, 260,000-barrel-per-day Frontier project is supposed to come next week.

The project is expected to produce about four million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year over 40 years.