US and Canada's clean-energy alliance

The threat to Canadian producers of a US ban on imports of "dirty fuel" from the oil-sands has receded, for now. But the threat of a US carbon tax remains, writes WJ Simpson

President Barack Obama and Canada's prime minister, Stephen Harper, have sidestepped demands from some US politicians and environmentalists for an immediate ban on oil-sands imports, or a North American carbon cap-and-trade system. Meeting in Ottawa, in February, the two leaders began a "clean-energy dialogue" aimed primarily at finding technological answers to climate change – such as carbon capture and storage (CCS). They established a deadline for progress by declaring they were "committed and ready" to take a joint proposal to the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen in December, and in the process to repair the image of their countries as international climate-change pariahs. Aiming for a tr