Keystone XL: pressure on Kerry ahead of meeting with Canada counterpart [View all]

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Keystone XL: pressure on Kerry ahead of meeting with Canada counterpart

Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Friday 8 February 2013 12.09 GMT

The US secretary of state, John Kerry, steps into America's biggest environmental controversy on Friday in his first meeting with a foreign minister since his swearing in.

Kerry's meeting in Washington with Canadian foreign minister, John Baird, will almost certainly touch on the Keystone XL pipeline project: a symbol of dirty oil for environmentalists, a route to market for land-locked Alberta. "I have no doubt that subject will come up, as it always does with our Canadian counterparts," the state department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, told reporters.

Environmental campaigners say Barack Obama's decision on the $7bn (£4.4bn) project will be the litmus test of his inaugural day promise to act on climate change in his second term.

That puts Kerry in an awkward predicament, as both sides ratchet up the pressure over the project, intended to carry crude from the tar sands of Alberta to refineries on the Texas coast.

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Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/feb/08/keystone-xl-john-kerry-canada