NEWS Keystone XL pipeline rejection signals US taking lead on climate change fight

In The Guardian (Novem­ber 7, 2015)

The sym­bol­ism was every­thing. Stand­ing before a por­trait of Teddy Roo­sevelt, the con­ser­va­tion­ist pres­i­dent who 104 years ago busted the Stan­dard Oil monop­oly, Barack Obama made his own tilt at an envi­ron­men­tal legacy.

The pro­posed 1,179-mile Key­stone XL pipeline, which Obama rejected on Fri­day, would have borne more than 800,000 bar­rels of excep­tion­ally high-​​carbon oil from Canada’s tar sands fields in Alberta to refiner­ies on the US gulf coast each day.

It should have been a shoo-​​in for pres­i­den­tial approval. Con­ser­v­a­tives and many labour unions loved it. Accord­ing to a State Depart­ment reportin 2014, envi­ron­men­tal­ists’ claims that it would reduce emis­sions from tar sands were unfounded. Key­stone XL is just one of many pipelines being built across North Amer­ica. If it was not built, the Cana­di­ans would sim­ply ship it from elsewhere.

So how did Obama come down on the side of a coali­tion of stu­dents envi­ron­men­tal­ists, farm­ers and indige­nous nations who admit that when they started this fight seven years ago, they had no hope of win­ning?

Amer­ica is now a global leader when it comes to tak­ing seri­ous action to fight cli­mate change. And frankly, approv­ing this project would have under­cut that global lead­er­ship,” said the pres­i­dent on Fri­day in an address to the nation.

It is here that the icon­o­clasm of Obama’s deci­sion reveals itself. Cli­mate change has become such an over­whelm­ingly main­stream polit­i­cal and diplo­matic imper­a­tive that it over­rides tra­di­tion­ally unbeat­able domes­tic interests.

The pres­i­dent said he had weighed the famil­iar argu­ments – jobs, gas prices, energy secu­rity – and had been swayed by none.

Build­ing the pipeline would have done lit­tle to ben­e­fit the US, he said. More oil from Canada was not going to make pump prices cheaper or help the US cut its reliance on for­eign oil. That has already hap­pened thanks to the frack­ing boom. Since 2008, the US has increased the yield of its domes­tic oil fields by a mas­sive 173%.

There’s no short­age of oil and gas here, so it seems par­tic­u­larly crazy to be import­ing crap when we have lots of our own fos­sil fuels,” said pro­fes­sor Daniel Kam­men, co-​​director of the Berke­ley Insti­tute of the Environment.

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On jobs, Obama said the pipeline was insignif­i­cant and that his mooted infra­struc­ture plan would cre­ate 30 times more jobs. But jobs are jobs and the US’s major con­struc­tion union called the Key­stone deci­sion “shame­ful”, adding that defin­ing jobs as insignif­i­cant just because they are tem­po­rary amounted to throw­ing work­ers “under the bus”.

Pro­fes­sor Robert Stavins, the direc­tor of Har­vard University’s envi­ron­men­tal eco­nom­ics pro­gram, told the Guardian he was not aware of any reli­able assess­ment of the project’s employ­ment impact. But he added that “Key­stone would have cre­ated a rel­a­tively small num­ber of jobs, and only dur­ing its con­struc­tion phase.”

Obama also had some harsh words for those in the envi­ron­men­tal camp. The pipeline was not “the express lane to cli­mate dis­as­ter” they had pro­claimed. Canada’s tar sands are unde­ni­ably dirty. They come to the sur­face in the form of a sticky and impure mix­ture of clay, sand, water and bitu­men. These are expen­sive and carbon-​​intensive to refine.

Now, with a chronic over­sup­ply and low prices, tar sands have become less attrac­tive. Oil major Royal Dutch Shell has recently pulled out of two projects in oil-​​rich Alberta, writ­ing off bil­lions of dol­lars worth of ini­tial investment.

Envi­ron­men­tal­ists argued oil pro­duc­ers would not be able to pay the extra costs of ship­ping by train or truck, mean­ing crude that would have run through Key­stone XL will now stay safely under the soil. But Stavins said this argu­ment relied rather too much on the unknow­able future wan­der­ings of the oil price.

It may mean less CO2 emis­sions in the long term, but we don’t really know,” he said. “When oil prices were higher last year, Key­stone would not have made any dif­fer­ence, because the oil would have been devel­oped and sent to refiner­ies with or with­out Key­stone. But that is less clear with the much lower oil prices we now have. In any event, this is a long-​​term and uncer­tain consequence.”

Obama had opened his remarks by pour­ing scorn on the totemic impor­tance the pipeline has attained.

Now, for years, the Key­stone pipeline has occu­pied what I, frankly, con­sider an over-​​inflated role in our polit­i­cal dis­course. It became a sym­bol too often used as a cam­paign cud­gel by both par­ties rather than a seri­ous pol­icy mat­ter,” he said.

And yet the pres­i­dent was engag­ing in his own sig­ni­fi­ca­tion, stand­ing in front of Theodore Roo­sevelt, killing Key­stone because of how it would look to the rest of the world.

We’re going to have to keep some fos­sil fuels in the ground rather than burn them and release more dan­ger­ous pol­lu­tion into the sky,” he said.

Cyn­ics have pointed out that Obama could have made his brave stand four years ago, instead of kick­ing the pipeline into the bureau­cratic long grass and ensur­ing it was no imped­i­ment to his sec­ond elec­tion. But lead­ing Demo­c­ra­tic can­di­dates Hillary Clin­ton and Bernie Sanders have already stated their oppo­si­tion to Key­stone XL, indi­cat­ing it may no longer be a poi­soned chalice.

Sud­denly, envi­ron­men­tal­ists believe they are win­ning. The Demo­c­ra­tic sen­a­tor Shel­don White­house, who has long fought against Key­stone in Con­gress, said he “wasn’t really sure it could get much bet­ter” on Thurs­day, after the New York attor­ney gen­eral launched a poten­tially era-​​defining inves­ti­ga­tion into ExxonMobil’s cli­mate denial. “And then today’s news came”.

White­house, who rep­re­sents Rhode Island, likened Obama’s deci­sion to the Bat­tle of Get­tys­burg, where the Amer­i­can civil war swung in favour of the union. “The town of Get­tys­burg itself was not the point,” he said.

The tide has turned,” 350.org’s Bill McK­ibben told jour­nal­ists on a press call. “Just in the last 36 hours we’ve had the New York attor­ney gen­eral sub­poena the largest, rich­est, most pow­er­ful fos­sil fuel com­pany on earth. Now we’ve had the first rejec­tion of a major fos­sil fuel infra­struc­ture project that I can think of. That is a sign that we are mov­ing into a new era.”

Link­ing the deci­sion to the upcom­ing United Nations cli­mate nego­ti­a­tions in Paris, Sierra Club exec­u­tive direc­tor Michael Brune said the deci­sion “will rever­ber­ate from Wash­ing­ton, to Ottawa, to Paris and beyond”.

Key­stone is such a touch­stone issue because it flies in the face of the new United States posi­tion being a cli­mate leader,” said Kam­men. With the rejec­tion, he said, Obama was “back­ing words with actions”.

Obama has increas­ingly pinned his legacy to the out­come of those talks, strik­ing emis­sions deals with China and the G7 and forc­ing through the strongest-​​ever domes­tic cuts to US power emis­sions.

Unchar­ac­ter­is­ti­cally com­ment­ing on a mem­ber country’s inter­nal pol­i­tics, the UN’s cli­mate chief, Chris­tiana Fig­ures, also tied the Key­stone deci­sion to the Paris talks, tweet­ing: “Just in the last 24 hours Exxon sub­poe­naed, Key­stone rejected. We may finally have under­stood the risk of inac­tion on cli­mate. Now to action.”

The sym­bolic value is sig­nif­i­cant because it will posi­tion the United States in a more favourable light with those coun­tries and those activists who favour strong action on cli­mate change,” said Har­vard pro­fes­sor Stavins. The boost to US cred­i­bil­ity would allow it to drive through a more effec­tive deal in Paris.

On Fri­day, Repub­li­cans called for back-​​up to mount a chal­lenge to the rejec­tion of Key­stone in the Sen­ate. Tran­sCanada, the com­pany behind the pipeline, tried to staunch its bleed­ing share price by say­ing it would “review all of its options”.

How­ever these amount to reap­ply­ing for a new pres­i­den­tial per­mit – a costly process that will most prob­a­bly depend on whether a Repub­li­can or Demo­c­rat takes over the White House in 2016.

But even if the project is some­how res­ur­rected, it will face infi­nitely stronger oppo­si­tion. Envi­ron­men­tal­ists, who once thought tak­ing on Key­stone XL was an unwinnable fight, will now know for sure that it is only a pipeline.

We’re going to have to keep some fos­sil fuels in the ground rather than burn them and release more dan­ger­ous pol­lu­tion into the sky,” he said.

Cyn­ics have pointed out that Obama could have made his brave stand four years ago, instead of kick­ing the pipeline into the bureau­cratic long grass and ensur­ing it was no imped­i­ment to his sec­ond elec­tion. But lead­ing Demo­c­ra­tic can­di­dates Hillary Clin­ton and Bernie Sanders have already stated their oppo­si­tion to Key­stone XL, indi­cat­ing it may no longer be a poi­soned chalice.

Sud­denly, envi­ron­men­tal­ists believe they are win­ning. The Demo­c­ra­tic sen­a­tor Shel­don White­house, who has long fought against Key­stone in Con­gress, said he “wasn’t really sure it could get much bet­ter” on Thurs­day, after the New York attor­ney gen­eral launched a poten­tially era-​​defining inves­ti­ga­tion into ExxonMobil’s cli­mate denial. “And then today’s news came”.

White­house, who rep­re­sents Rhode Island, likened Obama’s deci­sion to the Bat­tle of Get­tys­burg, where the Amer­i­can civil war swung in favour of the union. “The town of Get­tys­burg itself was not the point,” he said.

The tide has turned,” 350.org’s Bill McK­ibben told jour­nal­ists on a press call. “Just in the last 36 hours we’ve had the New York attor­ney gen­eral sub­poena the largest, rich­est, most pow­er­ful fos­sil fuel com­pany on earth. Now we’ve had the first rejec­tion of a major fos­sil fuel infra­struc­ture project that I can think of. That is a sign that we are mov­ing into a new era.”

Link­ing the deci­sion to the upcom­ing United Nations cli­mate nego­ti­a­tions in Paris, Sierra Club exec­u­tive direc­tor Michael Brune said the deci­sion “will rever­ber­ate from Wash­ing­ton, to Ottawa, to Paris and beyond”.

Key­stone is such a touch­stone issue because it flies in the face of the new United States posi­tion being a cli­mate leader,” said Kam­men. With the rejec­tion, he said, Obama was “back­ing words with actions”.

Obama has increas­ingly pinned his legacy to the out­come of those talks, strik­ing emis­sions deals with China and the G7 and forc­ing through the strongest-​​ever domes­tic cuts to US power emis­sions.

Unchar­ac­ter­is­ti­cally com­ment­ing on a mem­ber country’s inter­nal pol­i­tics, the UN’s cli­mate chief, Chris­tiana Fig­ures, also tied the Key­stone deci­sion to the Paris talks, tweet­ing: “Just in the last 24 hours Exxon sub­poe­naed, Key­stone rejected. We may finally have under­stood the risk of inac­tion on cli­mate. Now to action.”

The sym­bolic value is sig­nif­i­cant because it will posi­tion the United States in a more favourable light with those coun­tries and those activists who favour strong action on cli­mate change,” said Har­vard pro­fes­sor Stavins. The boost to US cred­i­bil­ity would allow it to drive through a more effec­tive deal in Paris.

On Fri­day, Repub­li­cans called for back-​​up to mount a chal­lenge to the rejec­tion of Key­stone in the Sen­ate. Tran­sCanada, the com­pany behind the pipeline, tried to staunch its bleed­ing share price by say­ing it would “review all of its options”.

How­ever these amount to reap­ply­ing for a new pres­i­den­tial per­mit – a costly process that will most prob­a­bly depend on whether a Repub­li­can or Demo­c­rat takes over the White House in 2016.

But even if the project is some­how res­ur­rected, it will face infi­nitely stronger oppo­si­tion. Envi­ron­men­tal­ists, who once thought tak­ing on Key­stone XL was an unwinnable fight, will now know for sure that it is only a pipeline.

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