Stephen Harper’s statement that Canada “won’t take ‘no’ for an answer” regarding the impending U.S. decision about the Keystone XL pipeline overlaps inauspiciously with a new study in Nature this week, which projects that, within a generation, known climates in most regions of the globe will be a “thing of the past”.

University of Hawaii ecologist Camilo Mora and his co-authors project that the recent increase in extreme weather events is merely the prelude to the next half century’s “unabated heat wave” as, under a business-as-usual scenario, climate moves wholly outside its range of historical precedence. Wholesale climate shifts will occur soonest in the tropics, where most of the world’s population and much of its biodiversity live. The punchline? Says Mora, “any progress to slow ongoing climate change will require a larger commitment from developed countries to reduce emissions.” Yet Canada’s Prime Minister is leading the charge instead to accelerate carbon emissions from oilsands.

Harper’s position on Keystone XL exemplifies the point where the wheels of informed and ethical decision-making come off the track and signals a key decision point for Canada. While the timeline of their findings is shocking, the underlying message of Mora’s paper is not new: the horizon of major climate impacts is ever-narrowing and their negative consequences for human welfare, worldwide food and water supply, biological diversity, and global equity are amplifying. These are outcomes of fossil fuel development, about which decades of scientific research have warned. The release last week of the latest IPCC report reinforces these conclusions, emphasizing the global scientific consensus on the magnitude and immediacy of climate impacts and the need for significant action. The unavoidable conclusion is that it is irresponsible for nations to make decisions about major fossil fuel development projects without accounting for global carbon pollution and the disproportionate burden it places on nations with the least capacity to adapt. Yet the overly simplistic and fractured nature of the current rhetoric and decision-making process over Canadian oilsands development and pipelines in North America virtually guarantees the continued sidestepping of this full accounting, and offer instead a rapid amplification of Canada’s contribution to global carbon pollution.

Decisions on oilsands development and pipelines collectively represent a distinct and substantial North American contribution to a global tragedy of the climate commons, and set a dangerous precedent for other regions. However, imminent decisions by the U.S. and Canadian governments are being treated as if they can be made solely on the basis of national and regional interests. Individual proposals are evaluated in isolation, avoiding explicit analysis of the cumulative impacts of sequential decisions. Furthermore, this incremental approach to decision-making ignores persistent inequities between those who produce the majority of emissions and stand to gain from short-term economic benefits, and those who will suffer the most from climate change. As a result, the deep links between decisions on unconventional fossil fuel development, pipelines, carbon pollution, and global equity are fractured in the public discourse and within policy circles.

This nexus of policy, economic, and environmental issues represents a critical decision point for policy-makers that is likely to set the tone for the thousands of semi-independent global decisions on fossil fuel developments that will be made in the coming years. It potentially commits the Canadian and U.S. governments to decades of carbon pollution through massive infrastructure investments associated with the development and transport of unconventional oil reserves. In contrast, we argue that decision-making for large fossil fuel development projects must recognize that climate destabilization imposes a hard constraint with a clear timeline on acceptable human actions. Any development must take into account the impacts on carbon pollution, biodiversity, ecosystem function, and human well-being, and acknowledge the global and inter-generational implications of decisions that are seen through a short-term and regional- or national-scale lens. Canada must move beyond its current “see no evil” approach, which will accelerate rather than avoid a tragedy of the climate commons. We know how to make better decisions. In the absence of political consensus on how to proceed, we can at least apply the best of climate and environmental science to a well-structured, transparent decision process that addresses both ecological and ethical issues across appropriate and cumulative scales. Canada owes this much to its own citizens, global neighbours, and broader family of nature around the world.

Dr. Ken Lertzman, Full Professor: School of Resource and Environmental Management, Director: The Hakai Network for Coastal People, Ecosystems and Management, Simon Fraser University.

Dr. Maureen Ryan, Research Associate: Department of Biological Sciences, Earth to Ocean Research Group, Simon Fraser University.

Dr. Wendy Palen, Assistant Professor in Aquatic Conservation: Department of Biological Sciences, Earth to Ocean Research Group, Simon Fraser University.

Dr. Anne Salomon, Assistant Professor: School of Resource and Environmental Management, Simon Fraser University.

Dr. Joseph Arvai, Svare Chair in Applied Decision Research, Institute for Sustainable Energy, Environment and Economy at the University of Calgary.