Newsletter: Karen Ogen spreads the word at COP 28

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Our newsletter: 07 December 2023

Karen Ogen at COP

Our Alliance chair, Karen Ogen, began with a short interview on Indigenous Peoples Day at the COP28 climate conference in Dubai.

It included this: “The Alberta Indigenous Opportunities Corporation and the work that they’re doing in Alberta with the First Nations, in terms of equity ownership . . . (are) paving the way for other provinces and nations throughout Canada to help us to get to that point of equity ownership and loan guarantees for First Nations who live on reserve.”

She also checked in with the First Nations Climate Initiative delegation at the event. ”They are working with different countries, and want to start looking at ways of helping other countries get off of coal, which is the message that we come to bring, so we share in the same messaging.”

Karen then spoke on a panel hosted by the Clean Resource Innovation Network. Among her points: “In the last 10 years, I think that a lot of government, industry, realized that they need to get consent from indigenous people throughout Canada (for resource projects). . . . Anywhere you go, you’re going into somebody’s Indigenous territory.”

And: “We want to preserve and protect our environment so that means that we want to have the highest environmental standards possible. So when approving projects or looking at projects, we get consent from, ‘How is this sustainable for our environment?’

  • Video:

She also spoke on a panel with Energy for a Secure Future Canada but, alas, encountered some sound problems. Be patient, and you’ll catch her at 09:35 introducing the Alliance, and saying: “First Nations have gotten involved in LNG projects because we believe it will bring lasting benefits for our people in getting out of intergenerational poverty. We are already seeing benefits from employment, training, contracting, procurement, and benefit agreements.”

  • This video: https://youtu.be/PIBjbNpb50Y

Karen clearly told COP28 listeners: “We have the cleanest LNG in the world. China wants Canadian LNG to help displace coal. We need to start sending our LNG over to China, to Asia so we can help reduce global emissions, while advancing economic reconciliation in Canada.”

And in an interview with CBC News in Dubai: “‘In Canada, we have economic reconciliation, but at the same time, too, we have climate initiatives that we need to be very cognizant of and be very diligent in how we’re going to mitigate those. . . . Our First Nations are continuously having to manage poverty and we want to be able to start to manage prosperity. 

CGL pipeline photo

Pipeline ‘new era’ for Indigenous people

Karen Ogen sees potential First Nations equity in the Coastal Gas Link pipeline as “economic reconciliation at work.”

She said in a guest column in Business in Vancouver: “Today, after over a decade of LNG development – with the Coastal GasLink pipeline complete, and the LNG Canada facility in Kitimat nearing completion – we have entered an era where Indigenous, opportunity and ownership can be spoken together, with a proof point.

“Over the last decade, Indigenous people across northwestern B.C. have been working closely with TC Energy, trying to ensure our place at the table, not just as advisors or as workers, but as equity partners.

“The Coastal GasLink project is Canada’s first pipeline to tidewater in nearly 70 years. Perhaps more importantly, for Indigenous people, it was the first project of this scale and size that offered equity ownership. The option for First Nations communities to purchase a 10-per-cent equity interest in the pipeline was and is historic.”

LNG Canada site

Gas to LNG Canada by year-end?

The Coastal GasLink pipeline now has commissioning activities in full swing “so that we are poised to deliver commissioning gas to the LNG Canada facility by the end of this year.”

CGL has completed its five-year construction phase, during which “workers, contractors, Indigenous and local communities collaborated to complete Canada’s first pipeline to the west coast in 70 years.”
Meanwhile, LNG Canada is preparing to test thousands of pieces of equipment at its Kitimat site, including a period of gas flaring planned for the second quarter of 2024.

Installation of the flaring system has already begun, and the new vapour and liquid flare derricks are now visible from Kitamaat Village and Kitimat.

Can Canada get credits for LNG exports?

Could we apply international carbon-credits to our own greenhouse-gas emissions?

It is (at least in theory) possible under Article 6 of the international Paris Climate Agreement of 2015.

And Ottawa is still expressing interest in this.

Over 1,000 new coal-fired power plants have been announced or permitted or built, with 90% of them in Asia. Canada could help by replacing coal with LNG.

But right now, if Canada produces LNG, the emissions from the production count toward Canada’s national greenhouse-gas inventory. Our exported LNG may reduce an importing country’s GHG numbers, but the difference in emissions affects the importer’s official GHG count, not Canada’s.

Could that change with new rules on carbon-credits from the COP28 conference in Dubai?

Alberta solar site

Indigenous clean-energy news

 ALSO IN THE NEWS

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Coming up Thursday Dec. 14, our free webinar on the B.C. government’s CleanBC program — and what it will cost British Columbians. Don’t miss this one!

Register here: https://ow.ly/thjQ50QeMFQ

 2024

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The First Nations LNG Alliance is a collective of First Nations who are participating in, and supportive of, sustainable LNG development in BC.

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