MONTREAL — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged on Tuesday to require that environmental reviews of proposed oil pipelines consider greenhouse gas effects, and said it was not his role to be a cheerleader for such projects.
Trudeau said his new Liberal government would roll out the rules soon, and that they would take into account not just the greenhouse gas emissions from a pipeline but also its “upstream” effects, meaning those from oil production.
He did not make clear how much weight would be applied to the emissions. When U.S. President Barack Obama rejected the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada last year, the critical rationale was the effect it could have on climate change.