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.

Keystone XL pipeline oil vs combined emissions from 100 nations
CHART: Climate pollution from Keystone XL oil (195 MtCO2) vs the combined emissions from 100 nations (182 MtCO2). Graphic by Barry Saxifrage at visualCarbon.org and NationalObserver.com. November 2016.

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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