I’ve often thought politicians inhabit a parallel universe. Maybe it’s just widespread cognitive dissonance, coupled with a lack of imagination, that compels them to engage in so much contradictory behaviour. Trying to appease so many varying interests isn’t easy.

Rather than focusing on short-term economic and corporate priorities, though, politicians should first consider the long-term health and well-being of the people they’re elected to represent. When it comes to climate change and fossil fuels, many aren’t living up to that.

We celebrate the federal government’s decision to implement nation-wide carbon pricing, even though what’s proposed won’t, without additional measures like regulations, get us to our commitments under the Paris Agreement, which is also inadequate for keeping global warming from catastrophic levels. A government could be forgiven for going slow on a measure opposed by some industrial sectors, provinces and citizens, but it’s difficult to take a government seriously when it approves or supports expanding fossil fuel infrastructure and development while the world continues to break warming records, with increasingly dire consequences.

A massive B.C. “carbon bomb” LNG project in the midst of critical salmon-rearing territory, in defiance of many area First Nations’ wishes. Likely approval of at least one more bitumen pipeline to support expanded oil sands development. A provincial government that pretty much says, “We’ll support federal efforts to fight climate change if you support our efforts to fuel it.” None of this makes sense.

As a report from non-profit Oil Change International and 14 other groups concludes, “The potential carbon emissions from the oil, gas, and coal in the world’s currently operating fields and mines would take us beyond 2°C of warming,” and “The reserves in currently operating oil and gas fields alone, even with no coal, would take the world beyond 1.5°C.” That’s without any new development!

That leaves us with three choices: managed decline, stranded assets or climate chaos. The first, which the report recommends, means no new fossil fuel infrastructure, existing supplies become depleted and replaced with clean alternatives and employees redeployed to latter. As the report’s authors point out, “This does not mean stopping using all fossil fuels overnight. Governments and companies should conduct a managed decline of the fossil fuel industry and ensure a just transition for the workers and communities that depend on it.”

Stranded assets means, “Companies continue to develop new fields and mines, governments are eventually successful in restricting emissions, and the resulting reduction in demand causes many extraction assets to become uneconomic and shut down, causing destruction of capital and large job losses.”

Under the third scenario, we keep digging, mining, fracking, building, transporting, selling and burning until we’re well beyond the 2 C threshold, resulting in “economic and human catastrophe.”

Sadly, in Canada and globally, we’ve chosen the second option, and in some cases, the third. Subsidies to the fossil fuel industry, the most profitable industry ever, continue despite a 2009 G20 commitment to phase them out. Canada alone promotes the industry to the tune of about $3.3 billion a year in tax breaks and handouts, not including provincial incentives. Politicians say they care about climate while arguing we need more bitumen, natural gas and coal to fuel growing economies and human populations, and more pipelines to get “product” to tidewater and overseas markets. Saskatchewan has Canada’s best wind and solar resources, but the government focuses on expensive and unreliable schemes like carbon capture and storage while arguing against carbon pricing and other tools to cut emissions.

It’s all a form of denial. Conserving energy, shifting to cleaner sources, reducing automobile use by improving transit and bike and pedestrian infrastructure, protecting and restoring carbon sinks such as forests and wetlands, and getting a handle on agricultural emissions are all possible, and would create numerous jobs and economic opportunities.

Most national governments have committed to the 2015 Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to 2 C above pre-industrial levels, with an aspirational goal of 1.5 C. We’re already nearing the latter, with growing consequences, including increasing extreme weather events, water and food shortages, migration crises and extinctions. We must conserve energy, quickly phase out coal power and continue to develop renewable resources.

As Oil Change International says, “If you’re in a hole, stop digging.”

Written with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Editor Ian Hanington. Learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org.

Image: Alberta oilsands by Kris Krug

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The recent oil train derailment and subsequent explosion in North Dakota was yet another reminder tighter regulations and more independent research on transporting oil is needed — particularly where volatile shale oil is concerned. Last week another reminder hit close to home when a CN Rail train carrying crude oil derailed and caught fire in New Brunswick.

The responsibility of protecting Canadians from an oil transportation disaster has largely fallen to the provinces while the federal government has weakened or eliminated rules and regulations that get in the way of its priority to sell as much Canadian oil as possible. 

By the end of this month the federal pipeline regulator, the National Energy Board (NEB), is expected to approve Enbridge’s proposal for its 38-year old Line 9 oil pipeline in Ontario and Quebec, which would carry shale oil — known for its propensity to explode as it did in North Dakota.

The NEB is not in the habit of rejecting pipeline projects (see Northern Gateway’s approval). With that in mind, the province of Ontario must hold its ground on Line 9 and ensure its demands for a safer pipeline are met.

While the province could have gone further with its demands, two of the conditions — a hydrostatic test of Line 9 and a third-party independent review — have the greatest potential of reducing the risk of a Line 9 rupture.

The first, hydrostatic testing, is the gold standard for pipeline safety. By pumping water through Line 9 at a slightly higher pressure than its proposed maximum allowable operating pressure, the test can help establish if Line 9 can operate safely at the maximum pressure. It can also identify weak points in the pipeline that need replacing.

The third-party independent review would entail an independent expert looking over Enbridge’s data on Line 9 and would eliminate reliance on Enbridge’s conclusions without duplicating the NEB process.

The least Ontario can do is flex whatever legislative muscle it can muster to ensure compliance with its conditions. Enbridge would do best to adopt these conditions given the company’s reputation as the “Keystone Kops” of oil pipeline safety for their bungling of a 2010 oil spill in Michigan, resulting in three million litres of bitumen spilling over the course of 17 hours.

None of this is to say Ontarians should settle for the Line 9 pipeline. Opposition to transporting oilsands bitumen via Line 9 will continue. The jury is still out on whether bitumen is rougher on pipelines than conventional oil and the difficulties of cleaning up a bitumen spill are well known. Expansion of the greenhouse gas intensive Albertan oilsands completely overshadows Ontario’s efforts to reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions.

And while Ontario expressed how important proper consultations with Ontario’s First Nations on Line 9 are, this was not one of the province’s conditions. It would be hard to find a clearer case of the failure to consult with First Nations than that of Line 9.

Still, while the conditions are far from perfect, the province must not be allowed to make demands for pipeline safety they never intend on backing up. Ontario has not breathed a word about its conditions since it presented them to the NEB in a public hearing on Line 9 in October.

Provinces are still responsible for the land, the water and the people within their borders. Failing to act on a pipeline proposal that threatens all of the above would blatantly ignore that responsibility. Oil train explosions and pipeline ruptures cannot be considered the price of doing business.

Image Credits: Enbridge Line 9 Report, Enridge, Pipeline Observer

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