The climate change commitment Canada will offer by the end of March as part of international environmental negotiations could be a factor in whether President Obama accepts or rejects the Keystone XL pipeline, according to a Bloomberg report.
The report from Bloomberg, which cited an unnamed U.S. official, comes a day after Obama used his third presidential veto to block legislation to build the pipeline. The 1,700-mile Canada-to-Texas project has been under federal review for more than six years.
Nations face a March 31 deadline for tendering national commitments as part of the United Nations-hosted talks that begin at the end of this year. Countries there will seek to reach a framework to govern emissions reductions beyond 2020 in hopes of keeping global temperatures from rising 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2100.
Obama has recently snagged climate agreements with China and India, the top and third-biggest greenhouse gas emitters. Doing the same with Canada, which in 2011 bowed out of the Kyoto Protocol that the U.S. never ratified, could help add momentum to the talks.
But Canadian officials don’t believe the $8 billion oil sands pipeline fits within the climate change discussion.
“We can’t do it as a quid pro quo on Keystone,” Canadian ambassador Gary Doer said, according to Bloomberg. “We don’t think that Keystone is a climate issue.”
Obama has said he wouldn’t approve the pipeline if it “significantly exacerbates the problem of carbon pollution.” The State Department’s final environmental impact statement said it wouldn’t, but environmental opponents contend that evaluation was flawed and that Keystone XL would be a linchpin for oil sands development.
