Opinion: Trudeau-backed Keystone XL will exceed climate pollution from 100 nations

Trudeau asked for it. Trump will approve it. Our climate is going to get it.

The Keystone XL pipeline will enable up to fifty million additional tonnes of fossil carbon to be dug out of Alberta's bitumen deposit each year. That will dump another 195 million tonnes of climate pollution per year¹ into our already destabilized climate.

For comparison, that exceeds the combined emissions from the 100 least climate polluting nations.²

Should Canada be pursuing Keystone XL at this point in the climate crisis? And should the Trudeau government approve yet another gigantic pipeline, in addition to Keystone XL — the bitterly opposed Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain expansion to Vancouver's shores?

Take a look at the comparison between KXL and 100 nations below and decide for yourself.

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Footnotes

1. Keystone XL has a stated capacity of 890,000 barrels a day. That's 325 million barrels per year. Environment Canada estimates 90 kgCO2 is emitted to extract each barrel of bitumen. A study by Oil Change International estimates 520 kgCO2 is released when each barrel of bitumen is burned. That's approximately 600 kgCO2/bbl in total. Multiplied by 325mbbls = 195 million tonnes of CO2 will be spilled into the air each year from this bitumen.
2. According to the EDGAR database, the 100 least climate polluting nations emitted a combined 184 MtCO2 in 2014. These nations are:
   Albania
   American Samoa
   Anguilla
   Antigua and Barbuda
   Armenia
   Aruba
   Bahamas
   Barbados
   Belize
   Benin
   Bermuda
   Bhutan
   Botswana
   British Virgin Islands
   Burkina Faso
   Burundi
   C. African Republic
   Cabo Verde
   Cambodia
   Cayman Islands
   Chad
   China, Macao
   Comoros
   Congo
   Cook Islands
   D. R. Congo
   Djibouti
   Dominica
   El Salvador
   Equatorial Guinea
   Eritrea
   Falkland Islands
   Faroe Islands
   Fiji
   French Guiana
   French Polynesia
   Gabon
   Gambia
   Georgia
   Gibraltar
   Greenland
   Grenada
   Guadeloupe
   Guam
   Guinea
   Guinea-Bissau
   Guyana
   Haiti
   Iceland
   Kiribati
   Laos
   Lesotho
   Liberia
   Madagascar
   Malawi
   Maldives
   Mali
   Malta
   Martinique
   Mauritania
   Mauritius
   Montserrat
   Mozambique
   Namibia
   Nauru
   Nepal
   Netherlands Antilles
   New Caledonia
   Nicaragua
   Niger
   Palau
   Papua New Guinea
   Paraguay
   Puerto Rico
   Réunion
   Rwanda
   Saint Helena
   Saint Kitts & Nevis
   Saint Lucia
   Saint Pierre & Miquelon
   Saint Vincent & Grenadines
   Samoa
   Sao Tome & Principe
   Seychelles
   Sierra Leone
   Solomon Islands
   Somalia
   Suriname
   Swaziland
   Tajikistan
   Timor-Leste
   Togo
   Tonga
   Turks and Caicos Islands
   Tuvalu
   Uganda
   US Virgin Islands
   Vanuatu
   Western Sahara
   Zambia