Alberta's climate change 'leadership' paved way for pipeline approvals, says Justin Trudeau

"andyt" said
A lesson Harper would have been well advised to learn. He blew it on Keystone, and on Enbridge.

Some diehards in the Alberta oilpatch won't give credit to Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Alberta NDP premier Rachel Notley for giving them the top gift on their Christmas wish list � approval of a new oil export pipeline. But according to a new book, those unlikely oilpatch allies did what former Prime Minister Stephen Harper wouldn't do to get Keystone XL constructed.

With a Donald Trump victory south of the border, Keystone XL may still be built one day, however its lengthy delays and rejection by Barack Obama have already cost millions, if not billions, in lost revenues for Canadian producers, led to the regulatory fast-tracking of pipelines in Canada and ratcheted up the pressure in Canada's already contentious pipeline debate.

Could all of this been avoided? Maybe, if Canada had played one important card, the only one it had left, but refused to use � a price on carbon.

Dennis McConaghy remembers the moment he knew Canada needed a carbon tax if Keystone XL was ever going to be approved. McConaghy was a TransCanada executive and his department came up with the idea for Keystone XL and gained commercial support for the project.

After Obama's speech at Georgetown University in June of 2013, McConaghy realized the writing was on the wall for Keystone XL, even though the project was never mentioned. The speech focused solely on climate change and took aim at fossil fuels.

"This is a challenge that does not pause for partisan gridlock. It demands our attention now. And this is my plan to meet it � a plan to cut carbon pollution; a plan to protect our country from the impacts of climate change; and a plan to lead the world in a coordinated assault on a changing climate," said Obama to applause.

McConaghy's new book, Dysfunction: Canada after Keystone XL, looks at how the project was almost built, but fell short. It examines the history of the project, the impacts in Canada and the choices the country now faces. McConaghy left TransCanada two years ago and cut his ties to the oilpatch, although he still holds shares in the Calgary-based company.

Around the time of the Georgetown speech and after it, TransCanada was talking with Harper's government and the main oil industry lobby group, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), about how to get Obama onside. McConaghy said company representatives raised the issue of carbon pricing.

"TransCanada tried to work with those two entities to see if any Canadian carbon policy changes could be made," said McConaghy.

Neither Harper nor CAPP had any appetite for a carbon tax, so the decision was made to stay the course. Oil industry players are often hypocrites when it comes to climate change, says McConaghy, because they broadly acknowledge the risks of climate change, but rarely endorse credible policy to deal with the problem.

Harper famously called the project a "no brainer," suggesting the merits of the project were good enough for the pipeline to be approved. There was no need for Canada to do anything else.

To this day, McConaghy wonders whether that decision sealed the pipeline's doom under Obama. A national carbon tax should have been introduced years ago, he says, and it could have saved the project.

"Carbon pricing, in a world that is trying to be serious about dealing with the issue, it was the only alternative for Canada," he says. "That should have been pursued more publicly and with greater conviction as the last card Canada had to play."

In his book, McConaghy says Harper's frosty relationship with Obama hurt the prospects of Keystone XL and a victory by then-Liberal leader St�phane Dion in 2008 may have changed the fortunes of the pipeline proposal because of Dion's ambitious Green Shift policy.

"Thanos" said
Either that or they know the actual real science instead of following a bunch of made up crap on the internet.