Furor Over Keystone Pipeline Caught U.S. and Canada Flat-Footed on Climate Change

InsideClimate News 2013-03-20

Summary:

Despite climate sweet talk from Alberta now, the Keystone saga is one of missed opportunity and diplomatic failure, experts say.

By John H. Cushman Jr.

As part of its effort to persuade the United States to accept the Keystone pipeline and the oil sands fuel it would carry from Canada, the province of Alberta is advertising itself as an environmental leader at the cutting edge of clean energy development.

On Sunday, the province took out a half-page ad in the New York Times asserting that it is "committed to raising the bar higher on its leading climate change policy."

"Our past, present and future environmental management actions—including the fact that Alberta already has a price on carbon and was the first place in North America to legally require all large industry to curb emissions—are unmatched by any oil producing region in the world," Premier Alison Redford said in a companion statement.

"To ignore the good work done in Alberta to begin to reduce greenhouse gas emissions—while others around the world simply talk—is disingenuous in the extreme," she added in a speech the next day.

Alberta's talk about its actions to address climate issue came as Redford prepares for a trip to Washington next month to lobby for the project—her fourth such visit in 18 months.

But the ad, which the opposition immediately said was misleading, was a lobbying tactic, not a diplomatic overture. Indeed, many experts see the long-running Keystone saga as a failure of diplomacy on all sides.

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Link:

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/solveclimate/blog/~3/bTpBhaa71tM/furor-over-keystone-pipeline-caught-us-and-canada-flat-footed-climate-change

From feeds:

Berkeley Law Library -- Reference & Research Services » InsideClimate News

Tags:

keystone xl transcanada climate legislation tar sands/oil sands

Authors:

John H. Cushman Jr.

Date tagged:

03/20/2013, 11:10

Date published:

03/20/2013, 07:30