14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier this year – on January 31, to be more precise – the US State Department released a report documenting the impact that the Keystone XL pipeline would have if built.
In this report, the State Department argued that, according to its investigations into the matter at hand, the project's environmental impact would be minimal.
This is because Canadian tar sands are to be exploited with or without Keystone XL. Hence, the pipeline cannot in itself be argued to contribute to global warming and climate change.
Fast forward a few weeks, and yet another report detailing the environmental impact of the Keystone XL project emerges.
Unlike the first, this one argues that the pipeline will be a star player in the development of the Canadian tar sands industry.
As detailed by Huffington Post, this second report is the brainchild of folks working with the Carbon Tracker Initiative, i.e. a non-profit group based in the United Kingdom.
These environmentalists claim that, contrary to what the US State Department would have people believe, the Keystone XL pipeline is bound to up the rate of tar sands exploitation.
This means that it will also lead to an increase in the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that human society annually produces, members and supporters of the Carbon Tracker Initiative argue.
These environmentalists explain that, when compared to transporting oil by rail, having it travel from one part of the world to another by pipeline is significantly more cost effective.
Hence, the Carbon Tracker Initiative estimates that, if given access to the Keystone XL pipeline, companies will find themselves producing some 525,000 more barrels of oil on a daily basis.
Otherwise put, the pipeline will contribute to the development of the Canadian tar sands industry and, in doing so, will become responsible for the release of whopping amounts of greenhouse gas emissions into our planet's atmosphere.
In fact, the Carbon Tracker Initiative expects that, by 2050, so-called KXL-enabled exploitation of tar sands will cough out the equivalent of 5.3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide.
“Through 2050, cumulative life-cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions attributable to KXL-enabled production are equivalent to the annual GHG emissions from one billion passenger vehicles or the annual carbon dioxide emissions from 1,400 coal fired plants,” the group writes in its report.
Interestingly enough, the Carbon Tracker Initiative also points out that, under all the Keystone-generated-emissions detailed in the State Department's January report, the United States will not meet its goal to reduce emissions by 17% when compared to the year 2005 by 2020.
“Future US carbon dioxide emissions under all of the FSEIS [final environmental impact statement] scenarios fail to meet the official US target of reducing 2020 carbon dioxide emissions 17% below 2005 levels, much less the more ambitious 2 degrees Celsius-relevant goal of reducing 2050 emissions 50% below 2005 levels,” the group maintains.