The Editorial Board congratulates President Obama for rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline, but it argues the president and his administration can do more to fight climate change.
After seven years of deliberations, the president announced last Friday that he was denying the energy company TransCanada’s application to construct the pipeline, according to the New York Times.
The pipeline would’ve carried oil from tar sands in Alberta, Canada, to the Gulf of Mexico for shipment to other countries.
The president’s move came ahead of global talks on climate change that are slated to take place Nov. 30 in Paris, according to Reuters.
Though the defeat of the pipeline should be cause for celebration, it is only a temporary victory in the president’s administration concerning climate change.
From 2010 to 2014, the United States built a total of 12,000 miles of oil pipelines, according to the Financial Post. By comparison, the Keystone XL pipeline would have been 875 miles long.
Afolabi Ogunnaike, an analyst with global energy research firm Wood Mackenzie, was quoted by the Financial Post as saying “if you look at 2010 versus now, we have seen historic realignment that has transformed the infrastructure situation. There has been tremendous investment in pipelines and more investments are coming on.”
If the president has been committed to fighting climate change, why have we seen so many pipelines carrying potentially dangerous oil constructed during his presidency?
Instead of investing in clean, renewable energy resources, thousands of miles of oil pipelines stretch across the country.
Vetoing the Keystone XL pipeline was an important step for the president.
But is it more of a symbol than an actual commitment to rewriting antiquated energy policy in the U.S. that favors coal, natural gas and oil instead of renewable forms of energy?
It’s only been within the past year that we’ve seen proposed steps to combat climate change from the president. In August, for example, the president unveiled the Clean Power Plan, which aims to reduce carbon emissions by 32 percent before 2030, according to CNBC.
It’s unclear how effective the plan is going to be, however, since 24 states filed a lawsuit in October against the Environmental Protection Agency to block the plan’s implementation, according to NBC News.
Not all of the blame lies with the president. Of the 24 states that are a part of the lawsuit, all but two of them are led by Republicans, NBC News noted.
The GOP, as a whole, is far more likely than their Democratic colleagues to deny climate change exists. A study from the University of Bergen, located in Norway, compared the conservative parties from the U.S., United Kingdom, Spain, Norway, Canada, Sweden, Australia, Germany and New Zealand and found the Republican Party in the U.S. was the only conservative party among the countries listed denies the existence of climate change, according to the Guardian.
Though the president must provide bold leadership that goes beyond political symbolism in the fight against climate change, Republican lawmakers must also cooperate to ensure environmentally risky projects like the Keystone XL pipeline fail to endanger America’s environment and energy security.
Otherwise, decisions like these are all smoke and mirrors.
