Climate change is deal breaker

For months, perhaps years, the federal government has blown so hot and cold on climate change, you could forgive the U.S. administration for wondering if Canada really cared about the issue.

From its initial doubts about global warming to reluctant acceptance, a tepid promise by Stephen Harper to follow the U.S. lead on curbing greenhouse-gas emissions, and ministerial double talk, the federal government has never convinced the U.S. that its heart is really in it. But convincing President Barack Obama that Canada is serious about climate change is critical to the future of the Keystone XL pipeline.

The federal government has always seen the construction of the pipeline as an economic issue, marshalling its arguments around the fact that the project will create thousands of jobs in the U.S. and ensure oil security. Despite Obama’s tendency to scoff at the job-creation argument, our federal government paid no heed.

Because of its own long ambivalence toward climate change, the Canadian government never understood, until now, that for the Obama administration, global warming is a central issue. And it doesn’t matter what Canada thinks about that argument.

For Obama, Keystone is perhaps more a political decision than an economic one, something Canada has been slow to recognize. It wasn’t until Obama referred to the oilsands as “tarsands” in a recent speech and said Keystone should not be approved if it was found to “significantly exacerbate” carbon emissions, Ottawa finally woke up.

If reports that Harper has sent a letter to Obama offering to participate with the U.S. in a joint effort to cut carbon emissions in the oil and gas industry are accurate, it is a good decision.

The federal government is now acknowledging what needs to be done to get Keystone approved. Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver left for Washington Monday to sell the U.S. on Canada’s commitment to a new partnership on climate change, and we hope he succeeds.

Let us also hope, however, that Oliver has grown out of his tendency to muddy things up by including in his statements occasional favourable references to climate-change deniers.

Obama, whether out of principle or as a sop to the legions of environmental activists who support him, has made climate change one of the centrepieces of his second term. The biggest decision with significant environmental consequences he’ll likely make before leaving office is Keystone.

We have to understand U.S. sensitivities and make it palatable for Obama to approve the project because it is in our economic interest.

And that will involved showing them that we take climate change seriously.