How political symbolism brought down Keystone XL

The new president of the United States describedhis inauguration on Wednesday as a moment to move forward. Butmoving forward properly requires areckoning with the past. In Joe Biden's case, that reckoning came for the Keystone XL pipeline.

The project's fate seemed to be sealed years ago, but it haunts us still. And now, with strident words from Alberta Premier Jason Kenney about a trade war, it could haunt Canadian politics indefinitely.

Or, Canadian leaders coulddecide that it's time for them to move forward, too.

The executive order that rescinded Keystone XL's permit on Wednesday states that "the United States must be in a position to exercise vigorous climate leadership in order to achieve a significant increase in global climate action and put the world on a sustainable climate pathway."

If that sounds familiar, it's because President Barack Obama said almost the same thing when he blocked Keystone in November 2015. "America is now a global leader when it comes to taking serious action to fight climate change," Obama said. "And frankly, approving this project would have undercut that global leadership."

John Kerry secretary of state in 2015 and now Biden's climate envoy put an even finer point on the significance of Keystone in his own statement at the time. "The United States cannot ask other nations to make tough choices to address climate change if we are unwilling to make them ourselves," he said.

A pipeline that became a referendum

In hisremarks, Obama argued that the practical value of the pipeline had been wildly overstated by both sides. Keystone XL, he said,wouldbe neither "a silver bullet for the economy, as was promised by some, nor the express lane to climate disaster proclaimed by others."

But the economic arguments in favour of the pipeline could not overcome the profound symbolic value assigned toit by environmental groups and climate-focused voters.

On its own,Keystone wouldn't spellthe difference between a green future and a "climate disaster."But the pipeline became a referendum on the U.S. government's commitment to combating climate change a tangible thing on which American activists could focus their energies.

Trump, who actively sought to undermine attempts to fight climate change, revived the project. But the political frame that was placed around Keystone XL in 2015 never went away, whilelegal challenges to the project continued.

By the fall of 2019, most of the major Democratic candidates for the presidencyhad pledged to rescind Trump's order on their first day in office. Last May, Bideninsisted that he would kill the pipeline.

AfterBiden's victory in the presidential election, the Eurasia Groupsaidthat rescinding the permit was a "table stake" for the Democratic president andthat backing away would risk "raising the ire of activists, their committed followers, and importantly the left wing of the Democratic party in Congress."

"Rescinding KXL would be one area the Biden administration could act [on]and deliver a win to a key political constituency with no congressional interference," the global consulting firm said.

Bill McKibben, one of the activists who led the campaign against Keystone, wrote in the New Yorker on Thursday that he was grateful for Biden's decisionand never doubted thatthe new president would follow through. "Even today," he wrote, "Keystone is far too closely identified with climate carelessness for a Democratic president to be able to waver."

So the second death of Keystone shouldn't have surprisedanyone. It might have seemedrude of Biden to not wait a day or two to allow Canadian officials to make a fuller presentation on the pipeline's behalf, but thatonly wouldhave delayed the inevitable.

The lingering costs of climate inaction

Perhaps Bidenthought he was doing his neighbours a favour by ripping the Band-Aid off quickly.

What might havehappened to Keystone XL had Canada and the United States taken more aggressive measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the years leading up to Obama's decision? It's an intriguing hypothetical.Keystone may have paid the price ultimatelyfor decades of global inaction on climate change.

In the here and now, any debate about Keystone will haveto consider whether its additional capacityis even needed at this point. In the meantime,PremierKenneywants Justin Trudeau's government to impose trade sanctions onthe United States if Biden refusesto revisit his decision.

Stephen Harper could be ungracious in his defence of Keystone he famously said that approving it was a "no brainer" but his government doesn't seem to have ever publicly threatened to impose sanctions if Obama rejected it. Nor does it appear anyone called for sanctions when Obama officially killed the project shortly after the Trudeau government came to office.

Sanctions out of spite?

This idea of reprisalsseems to have originated recently with Jack Mintz, a Canadian economist, who also conceded that imposingtariffs could be akin to"cutting off our own nose to spite our face."

Notably,Erin O'Toole's federal Conservatives havenot joined the premier in calling for sanctions. Kenney whosegovernment is polling poorly and whoseparty is being out-fundraised by the opposition is spoilingfor a fight. He has seized on the fact that federal officials did not respond to Biden's decision in particularly strong terms and theLiberals may not have struck the right tone for those listening in the Prairies.

WATCH: Alberta Premier Jason Kenney says Ottawa'folded' on Keystone XL

'The government of Canada told us they supported this until they folded': Kenney

4 years ago

Duration 2:14

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney says the federal government 'folded' in response to U.S President Joe Biden's decision to revoke the Keystone XL pipeline.

But before launching a trade war against this country's closest ally and its new leader,one shouldconsider the potentialresults and opportunity costs.

Would a trade war convince President Biden to brave the wrath of his supporters and reverse a campaign promise? Or would a renewed fight over Keystone XL simply consume political and diplomatic capital that could be put toward other things?

Kenneyhas said sanctions might discourage the Biden administration from intervening against two other contested pipelines that originate in Alberta Line 5 and Line 3.Writing in the New Yorker, McKibben did identify Line 3 as a target.But there's also adecent chancethat sanctions would only inflame existing tensions around those projects.

Threats and futility

In May, 2015 nearly six years ago former Canadian diplomatColin Robertsonwrote that it was time for the Canada-U.S. relationship to move on from Keystone XL. Robertson argued that there were toomany other important things to talk about. Six years later, that list of important things includes fostering collaboration on clean energy, fending off 'Buy American' policies andcombating China's aggression.

Still,Kenney warned that if the Trudeau government doesnot do more todefend Keystone, "that will only force us to go further in our fight for a fair deal in the federation."

But if the battle for Keystone was effectively lost more than five years ago, should the federal government's willingness to keep fighting it have any bearing on Alberta's relationship with the rest of the country?

The deathof Keystone XL will have a real impact on those Albertans whose jobs depended on it. There arereal anxieties and questions that need to be addressed, not least by the federal government.

But the question now is whether fighting over Keystone will do anything to address those concerns or whether it's time to put that politicalenergytoward other purposes.