How Obama’s Keystone XL rejection adds momentum to the Paris climate talks
"This is the last but also the biggest card that the president could play to compel other world leaders to take strong action in Paris next month,” says Michael Brune, the executive director of the Sierra Club, which has long opposed the pipeline.
And not just that, says Brune: It makes a particular point about the long-term need for decarbonization, which includes leaving certain fuels in the ground. “This announcement is powerful in that it will show that the world is beginning to turn away from extreme energy sources, and it will provide significant momentum to a long term decarbonization goal,” Brune says.
Indeed, the President himself made this very point directly in his remarks Friday on the rejection of the pipeline. “Ultimately if we’re going to prevent large parts of this Earth from becoming not only inhospitable but uninhabitable in our lifetimes, 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,” Obama said.
The oil in the project alone would account for 168 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (MMTCO2e) per year, with the incremental increase of 27 MMTCO2e. Over the life of the project this would lead to an unacceptable amount of carbon pollution at a time when all estimates are saying that we are quickly burning through our remaining carbon budget. All studies that look at what can be burned in a 2 degrees C world show that tar sand reserves shouldn’t be developed.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ris-climate-talks/?postshare=6701446829914447
