CLIMATE LEADERS
Nisga’a Nation president Eva Clayton, left, Lax Kw’alaams Band Mayor John Helin and Haisla chief councillor Crystal Smith display unity after agreeing to work toward exporting liquefied natural gas in the ‘cleanest and greenest’ way possible.
A group of North Coast First Nations believes it’s possible to export B.C. liquefied natural gas while meeting Canada’s climate-change goals — with “the cleanest and greenest” possible LNG projects.
“I think there is a balance that can be reached, if we work together, where we can have the cleanest, greenest projects go ahead, at the same time, addressing some of those (social) problems that we face,” said John Helin, mayor of the Lax Kw’alaams band, based near Prince Rupert.
The Lax Kw’alaams, Metlakatla, Nisga’a and Haisla First Nations signed a memorandum of understanding Wednesday under the name of the Northwest Coast First Nations Collaborative Climate Initiative.
Helin said the effort will work toward a “shared vision” with provincial and federal governments to displace coal-fired electrical power generation elsewhere in the world with LNG produced in B.C.
That, however, is contingent upon countries finalizing implementation of an article of the Paris Agreement on climate to allow countries that cut emissions by displacing coal to share their emission credits with the countries that produced the natural gas.
The Haisla Nation already has a 25-year export licence from the National Energy Board and proposed a floating, liquid natural gas facility south of Kitimat. The participating First Nations and their territories are all in northwestern B.C., generally in the area between Prince Rupert and Kitimat.
“Our territories aren’t in a bubble,” said Haisla Chief Crystal Smith, “and aren’t protected by what’s happening in China and Japan. We need to have real solutions for the global impacts of (greenhouse-gas emissions), and that’s what we as leaders are working together to provide so that what we live off of, which has sustained us from time immemorial in our traditional territories, has a chance to survive.”
At the same time, Smith said the Haisla want to have “a stake and a say” in resource developments happening in their territory and the community is already seeing transformational benefits from the Shell Canada-led $18 billion LNG Canada development.
“We have the opportunity in front of us as Haisla to share these opportunities with our neighbours, such as Lax Kw’alaams and Nisga’a,” Smith said.
Helin said the memorandum is just the start of a process that will involve discussions with government and First Nations in B.C.’s northeast.
“There is a lot of concern out there and we do have a lot of different points of view on the subject.”
In January, protesters representing five of 13 clans in the Wet’suwet’en First Nation blocked the construction route for the Coastal GasLink pipeline, which would supply the LNG Canada plant, highlighting the concerns of other Aboriginal communities over its climate impact and hydraulic fracturing or fracking.
However, with an obligation to alleviate poverty in their communities, Helin said First Nations should be able to make decisions about resource development “based on good science and clean energy” that finds a middle ground, if there is one to be found.
LNG development remains contentious because a plant such as LNG Canada would increase B.C.’s emissions, particularly through fugitive emissions in natural gas drilling, which environmentalists argue makes the fuel as harmful to the atmosphere as coal.
In the federal political sphere, Green party Leader Elizabeth May is campaigning on a platform that would ban hydraulic fracturing, the drilling method used to extract natural gas from shale rock, in part because of methane emissions.
Accounting for such methane emissions and establishing whether fuel from a B.C. LNG plant would enable China or Japan to achieve a net reduction in greenhouse gases would have to be part of the process, said Alex Grzybowski, a facilitator hired by the First Nations to gather technical information.
However, Grzybowski said they’re proceeding on the basis that, if northeast gas fields are electrified, the fuel is drilled and LNG is chilled using renewable electricity, the exported gas could displace enough coal power to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of all of B.C.’s carbon-dioxide emissions.
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