Science and WeatherWill Obama’s climate change plan mean an approval for Keystone XL?
This afternoon, while addressing students at Georgetown University, U.S. President Barack Obama revealed his new plan to make the United States the leader in combating climate change.
After years of resistance to the idea that climate change is even happening, this is a big step forward for the United States government. Obama's plan calls for caps on power plant emissions, which used to be allowed to emit as much carbon dioxide as they wanted, with the EPA to finalize rules for new power plants by the end of September of this year, and have draft rules for existing power plants drawn up roughly a year from now, with those rules going into effect in 2015. Added to this are plans for new fuel-economy standards for heavy vehicles and trucks starting with 2018 models, a push for more clean, renewable energy projects on public lands by 2020, and a cumulative reduction in carbon emissions — by changing electrical appliance efficiency standards and how federal buildings using energy — of at least 3 billion metric tons by 2030.
[ Related: Obama reveals bold new climate change plan ]
The plan will also include new commitments to international agreements, an end to U.S. support for coal-burning power plants overseas, and establishing a global free-trade agreement for clean-energy technologies, plus efforts on U.S. soil to mitigate the worst effects of climate change that is already happening.
This is all great news, but will it be enough, and what will this agreement mean for Canadians?
Even last week, when word first came out that Obama was going to announce a new climate change plan, people were already speculating that he was going to enact this so that there would be less resistance to him supporting the Keystone XL pipeline plan later on.
Whether that speculation was justified is yet to be seen, but Obama did mention the project in his speech:
"Now, I know there’s been, for example, a lot of controversy surrounding the proposal to build a pipeline, the Keystone pipeline, that would carry oil from Canadian tar sands down to refineries in the Gulf. But I do want to be clear: Allowing the Keystone pipeline to be built requires a finding that doing so would be in our nation’s interest. And our national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution. The net effects of the pipeline’s impact on our climate will be absolutely critical to determining whether this project is allowed to go forward. "
Responding to this specific part of the speech, Canada's Minister of Natural Resources Joe Oliver said (according to The Globe and Mail):
"We agree with President Obama's State Department Report in 2013 which found that, 'approval or denial of the proposed project is unlikely to have a substantial impact on the rate of development in the oil sands, or on the amount of heavy crude oil refined in the Gulf Coast area'."
However, there's a bit of trick here, regarding exactly how the State Department is viewing the situation.
Their view is that tar sands bitumen is going to find a way out of Alberta with or without the Keystone XL. This implies that they don't see the project exacerbating the problem at all, because the tar sands bitumen would still be processed and the fuel from it burned, regardless of whether they're involved or not. So, approving the pipeline wouldn't cause any more damage... it would just be a chance for the U.S. to benefit from the process instead of someone else.
Given the fact that the Canadian federal government has been aggressively pushing tar sands development in recent years, the State Department is probably right. Unless something changes in the federal government to put the brakes on developing the tar sands project, they likely will find another way for the oil to get where it's going — rail, truck, whatever.
However, although the U.S. State Department is taking a bit of a hand-waving approach to the project, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is taking a far-different stance.
In a letter to the State Department, EPA assistant administrator for the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Cynthia Giles pointed out the flawed thinking behind the State Department's conclusions, and wrote that "if [the greenhouse gas] intensity of oil sands crude is not reduced, over a 50 year period the additional [CO2-equivalent] from oil sands crude transported by the pipeline could be as much as 935 million metric tons."
To make it clear, that is over-and-above what would be produced in greenhouse gas emissions if the U.S. stuck with domestic crude oil sources. That doesn't even approach the topics of the equivalent cost of transporting the bitumen by train, or emissions from building the pipeline, or safety issues of the pipeline. We've already seen several recent environmental disasters regarding the tar sands project, such the 'produced water' spill in northern Alberta just about two weeks ago, and the Exxon pipeline break in Arkansas that was caused as a direct result of pumping bitumen through the pipeline.
[ More Geekquinox: Alberta flood damages could have been reduced if province heeded 2006 report ]
When it comes down to it, this fresh commitment of President Obama to combat climate change is a great step in the right direction. At a time when we're gathering more and more evidence of the fact that the warming climate is driving weather to more extremes, and even more evidence about how woefully unprepared we really are for these extremes, this is the time to be headed down a path towards more clean energy, rather than being hobbled by tying ourselves to a project with 'disaster' written all over it.
Canada used to be considered one of the world leaders in environmentalism and conservation. That standing has suffered lately, but it's time we earned it back.
(Photo courtesy: Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press)
Geek out with the latest in science and weather.
Follow @ygeekquinox on Twitter!
