Protesters rally outside the Alberta Legislature in Edmonton, in June, 2019. For the cost of a $40-billion pipeline, Canada could replace virtually every bus in the country with a zero-emission electric bus and build the charging infrastructure to power them, Tzeporah Berman writes.AMBER BRACKEN/The Canadian Press
Tzeporah Berman is a climate and energy policy adviser and long-time environmental advocate who is the co-founder of Stand.earth and the founder and chair of the Fossil Fuel Treaty.
I have been thinking a lot about the pipeline announcement by Prime Minister Mark Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, and the memorandum of understanding B.C. Premier David Eby signed with the federal government to boost infrastructure spending in the province that is being touted as escalating liquefied natural gas expansion.
It is difficult because I know both Mr. Carney and Mr. Eby. I know many of the people advising them, others who helped negotiate this deal and many who will now defend it. I voted for them. I believed they understood the threat of climate change and the economic opportunities emerging from the global energy transition.
They are not climate deniers and they are not people who reject science or dismiss the consequences of a warming planet. That is what makes this decision so difficult to understand.
The people behind the West Coast pipeline believe they have reached a necessary compromise: They argue that Canada needs economic growth, export revenue and greater independence from the United States. They argue that a new pipeline will strengthen national unity, create prosperity and provide room to pursue climate action elsewhere.
It is an argument Canada has heard before.
Before examining the politics, it is worth starting with the science.
Pipe for the Trans Mountain pipeline is unloaded in Edson, Alta., in June, 2019. Former prime minister Justin Trudeau justified the purchase of the pipeline as part of a broader political compromise, Tzeporah Berman writes.JASON FRANSON/The Canadian Press
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has concluded that existing fossil fuel infrastructure is already set to take us over the 1.5 C limit we’ve all agreed to avoid. The International Energy Agency has concluded that “As clean energy expands and fossil fuel demand declines in the NZE [net zero emissions] Scenario, there is no need for investment in new coal, oil and natural gas.”
Building a new oil sands pipeline is not simply building a piece of infrastructure. It is locking in decades of future emissions – and we’re already trending well beyond what the climate can safely absorb.
The consequences are not theoretical.
Canadians are already living through the effects of climate change. Wildfires have displaced families and darkened skies across the country. Air quality in many cities and towns has been hazardous and unsafe. Floods have caused billions of dollars in damage. Extreme heat is now among the deadliest weather-related hazards in Canada.
Around the world, the effects are even starker. Already, an estimated one person dies from extreme heat every minute.
Air pollution, much of it driven by fossil-fuel combustion, contributes to roughly 8 million premature deaths every year.
The government and industry are claiming that the Pathways carbon capture and storage (CCS) project will help offset emissions from increased production in the oil sands. We have heard this before too. However, a comprehensive assessment by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Development shows that after a half-century of very expensive development, carbon capture and storage has overpromised and underdelivered.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Prime Minister Mark Carney arrive to announce a proposed pipeline from Alberta to the B.C. coast, in Calgary on July 2.Todd Korol/The Canadian Press
Carbon capture may have an important role in reducing emissions from sectors such as cement, steel and chemicals where alternatives remain limited. But neither the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change nor the International Energy Agency concludes that it justifies expanding fossil fuel production.
Even with the promises for CCS, the Prime Minister has acknowledged that the new projects mean Canada will veer further from our emissions-reduction targets.
Even before these announcements, Canada has the worst record of reducing emissions of any G7 country.
The climate case against the pipeline is compelling. But there are other environmental concerns as well. Scientists have spent years warning that the Southern Resident killer whale population is on a trajectory toward extinction.
Fewer than 80 remain. Federal recovery strategies identify vessel traffic, underwater noise, declining Chinook salmon populations and pollution as the cumulative threats driving this iconic population toward extinction.
The proposed pipeline would increase all of them. Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCCs), each roughly the length of the Eiffel Tower laid on its side, would transit the Salish Sea, navigating some of the most ecologically important coastal waters in Canada.
One accident would leave damage measured in decades. Even without a spill, the constant passage of VLCCs would increase underwater noise, collision risks and disturbance in the whales’ critical habitat. Choosing to dramatically increase heavy oil tanker traffic through the Salish Sea is a decision that pushes the orca population closer to extinction.
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The economic case deserves equal scrutiny. The reported cost of a new pipeline could exceed $40-billion – an extraordinary sum of money. An as-yet unknown portion of that is likely to be financed publicly, rather than via private capital.
For comparison, Vancouver’s new St. Paul’s Hospital is being built for roughly $2.2-billion. Forty-billion dollars could fund the equivalent of nearly 20 major hospital projects. For the cost of a $40-billion pipeline, Canada could replace virtually every bus in the country with a zero-emission electric bus and build the charging infrastructure to power them. Or install heat pumps for 2.5 million Canadian families that would permanently lower energy bills and emissions. Or provide heat pumps and solar panels to more than a million households.
It could also address longstanding needs that governments have struggled with for generations. Safe drinking water remains unavailable in some Indigenous communities across Canada. The cost of ensuring clean drinking water would be only a fraction of the amount now being discussed for a pipeline.
That $40-billion could also help build industries that will generate jobs, investment and export revenue for decades to come. With that amount of money we could build multiple battery cell and component plants, supporting an industry expected to be worth hundreds of billions globally. Or we could support industries in Canada that are critical and struggling. A $40-billion investment in agriculture could support farmers and catapult what is already one of Canada’s largest export sectors into a global leader in climate-smart agriculture. Instead, this government seems hell-bent on subsidizing infrastructure for some of the most profitable and most polluting companies on the planet.
Canada possesses many of the ingredients needed to succeed in a low-carbon economy. We have abundant renewable energy, critical minerals, engineering expertise, manufacturing capacity and world-class research institutions. We have the ability to become a leader in clean electricity, batteries, energy storage, critical minerals processing, food production, advanced manufacturing and other sectors that are expected to drive economic growth through the coming decades.
Yet Canadians are rarely presented with those alternatives.
We are told a pipeline is necessary because Canada needs export revenue. Fair enough.
Workers construct a pipeline near the Shell Scotford Complex in Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., in October, 2021. Building a new oil sands pipeline is not simply building a piece of infrastructure, it is locking in decades of future emissions, Tzeporah Berman writes.TODD KOROL/Reuters
But where is the analysis comparing this investment against other opportunities? Where is the evidence that a $40-billion pipeline will generate greater long-term economic returns than investments in clean alternatives?
If it exists, we should have a robust public debate about it. If not, it should be studied and presented to Canadians. Canadians are being asked to assume this is the best available investment without seeing the alternatives seriously compared.
The other bewildering part of the economic argument is how our Prime Minister is simply ignoring how the global economy is already changing. Strange to see him, once a champion of low carbon development, and a fair stickhandler himself, skating to where the puck used to be.
Globally, one in four cars sold last year were electric. Clean energy investment, including in renewables, nuclear and grid and storage investment, is now double fossil fuel investment around the world. Governments and businesses are competing aggressively to capture the industries that will define economic growth in the decades ahead.
These are not niche markets driven by environmental idealism. They are some of the most significant economic opportunities of the 21st century.
Supporters of the pipeline argue that Canada must diversify exports beyond the United States and capture opportunities in Asia. Diversification to new markets is a legitimate objective, but this pipeline does very little to diversify our markets. It barely moves the needle.
The U.S. is and will continue to be the largest trading partner for our oil. That is a result not just of pipeline capacity but also demand, transportation costs and refining capacity.
Most of the economies Canada hopes will purchase increasing volumes of fossil fuels are simultaneously investing heavily in renewable energy, electrification and technologies designed to reduce fossil fuel demand. The same countries being cited as future markets are actively preparing for a different energy future.
Oil and gas supporters picket outside the National Energy Board in Calgary, in February, 2019.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
Finally, there is the political argument, that this agreement and new pipelines will lead to good compromises and greater national unity.
For two years, 2016 and 2017, I sat across the table from oil sands executives as co-chair of Alberta’s Oil Sands Advisory Group, which had been convened by Alberta’s NDP government.
I met some thoughtful and decent people. Many understood climate change was real and that their industry would have to change. We worked through difficult conversations and reached agreements.
The result was recommendations that informed Alberta’s climate plan that included a carbon price, an oil sands emissions cap, a coal phase-out and methane regulations.
The plan was publicized and promoted by the oil companies as proof that Canada was a leader in addressing climate change and creating the “cleanest oil.” Over the next four years those same companies backed campaigns by the industry’s principal lobby group to kill the policies they had stood on stage celebrating.
In his campaign to become Alberta premier, Jason Kenney built a political movement around dismantling those policies. He demanded my removal from the advisory group and led a relentless campaign against Alberta’s climate plan. These political attacks led to death threats against me and eventually a physical assault in the Edmonton airport.
The industry and its political allies won.
Climate policies that were once held up as evidence that compromise was possible have instead been weakened, delayed, repealed or abandoned.
That experience taught me a lesson that feels painfully relevant today.
The compromise is temporary. The concessions are permanent.
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When oil prices fall, governments are told production must increase to protect jobs. When oil prices rise, they are told production must increase to capture economic opportunity. During the COVID-19 pandemic, governments were told the industry required extraordinary public support and in fact the oil and gas industry received $18-billion in public financing and subsidies.
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, governments were told European energy security required more Canadian oil and gas. Following conflict in the Middle East, governments were told market instability justified new pipelines and expanded production.
When climate policies are proposed, governments are warned about competitiveness. When subsidies are offered, governments are told they are insufficient. When pipelines are built, governments are told more pipelines are needed.
The rationale changes. The conclusion remains the same.
More production. More subsidies. More infrastructure. Less regulation.
Now national unity has become the latest justification.
Canadians are being told that another pipeline is necessary to hold the country together. That climate ambition must once again be moderated to accommodate the demands of Alberta separatists. That the path to national unity runs through fossil fuel expansion.
We have heard this argument before.
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Justin Trudeau justified the purchase of the Trans Mountain pipeline as part of a broader political compromise. The theory was that a new pipeline would demonstrate support for Alberta and create room for carbon pricing, emissions reductions and climate leadership.
The pipeline was approved. Public money was spent. Construction moved ahead.
The promised peace never arrived.
Instead, Alberta’s political leadership and much of the industry continued fighting clean energy while portraying even modest climate measures as existential threats. One by one, many of those policies, too, have been weakened, delayed, dismantled or abandoned.
That is why I struggle to accept the argument being made today.
The fossil fuel industry’s most powerful political allies have spent years opposing the very policies that were supposed to justify previous compromises.
Their objective has not been to manage a transition. It has been to slow, weaken or prevent one.
Meanwhile, the climate crisis continues to accelerate.
The question facing Canada is not whether we can build another pipeline. The question is whether, given the science, the climate impacts unfolding around us, the opportunities emerging in the global economy and our own recent political history, it is the wisest use of $40-billion.
Forty-billion dollars is not just the cost of a pipeline. It is a measure of what Canada believes our future will be and whether we prioritize expanding the oil and gas industry over defending our health, our safety and our children’s future.