There's a group derived from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce called the Institute for 21st Century Energy, which publishes an international index of energy security. They conclude that the more players that are in global trade in energy, particularly large players like Canada, the more stable those world markets are and of course the lower world prices are. The lower world prices are and the more stable they are, the more developing countries can have a shot at achieving development. Why is that important? It's not just for humanitarian reasons, but we also know that countries that are more prosperous are actually more inclined and able to take care of their environment.
So if you really care about environmental protection, what you need to foster in countries that are undergoing great environmental degradation, not to mention human health degradation, is greater wealth. Greater wealth comes through affordable energy, and they can use access to energy to bootstrap themselves up into producing economies.
To me, that is the moral dimension of this, which is that trade is generally good. Trade benefits both the seller and the buyer; the seller gets something they want more than the product they had to sell, and the buyer gets something they want more than the money they have to use to buy it. Everyone is made better off. That's true very much for energy as it is with any other trade good.
So if we want to be players in the world community through markets, it's a moral imperative that we participate.