Many Indigenous leaders have expressed disappointment that only the leaders of the national organizations representing Inuit, Métis and First Nations were allowed to fully participate in the talks at a climate strategy meeting with the prime minister and premiers earlier this month. Other Indigenous leaders in attendance for the meeting in Vancouver were relegated to the role of spectators.   “Limiting conversation to three Indigenous voices from over 600 Indigenous communities across Canada is a vast under representation,” Melina Laboucan-Massimo, a climate and indigenous rights activist, said. “At a bare minimum, the regional chiefs should be at the table as well, but also Indigenous leaders and experts who work on climate should be as well.”   Regional chiefs were also frustrated that their input into the pan-Canadian framework for clean growth and climate change is limited, despite Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s promise of a “renewed, nation-to-nation relationship” with Indigenous people in Canada.   “We thought we’d have a chance to speak, but it was the national chief who was permitted to speak for about ten minutes. Ten minutes for all First Nations in Canada? That is a slap in the face to First Nations and embarrassment for Canada,” Ontario Regional Chief Isadore Day told DeSmog Canada. “Climate change is a matter of life and death. Our kids and grandkids will suffer if we fail to act and we only have a 20-year window to act. Clearly, we all need to work together.”

Treaty 6 Grand Chief Tony Alexis, an Alberta regional chief, said First Nations had been merely “asked to come and visit” the climate meeting. Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Fort Chipewyan First Nation in Alberta declared the federal government and premiers had “failed terribly” in addressing Indigenous concerns about climate change and protecting the environment.

“We Were Not Welcome At The Table": Chief Day   Two days of meetings took place in Vancouver: a meeting on March 2nd for Indigenous leaders, premiers and the prime minister and a meeting the following day exclusively for the provinces, territories and the federal government. Last-minute invitations to join the Alberta and Ontario provincial delegations allowed Day and Alexis to be present at the final meeting.   “We were not welcome at the table. If the meeting is an indication of how things will proceed moving forward, Indigenous peoples and Canadians should be concerned,” Day said.   Not all provinces appear comfortable with Indigenous leaders playing a significant role in the crafting of a Canadian climate framework either.   “From what I heard some provinces indicated during the meeting they would like to limit Indigenous involvement in the climate framework. I find this very concerning, not to mention deeply disrespectful,” Laboucan-Massimo told DeSmog Canada. “It is of immense importance for Indigenous governments to be engaged from start to finish at the four climate tables, and I hope that all levels of government respect that.”   Before the summit in Vancouver had begun, the federal government came under fire for failing to invite two other national Indigenous organizations — Native Women’s Association of Canada and the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples — to the talks. NDP Leader Tom Mulcair blasted Trudeau in Parliament for the “slight” and Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger pointed out in the past all five national organizations have been invited to attend first ministers meetings.   Indigenous Peoples To Be Consulted On The Climate Change Framework   A “broader engagement process with Indigenous peoples” is meant to take place alongside the work of four federal-provincial working groups studying key climate policy areas such as clean technology, carbon pricing mechanisms and greenhouse gas reductions strategies. If the recommendations are approved at a first ministers meeting this fall, they will make up the bulwark of a national framework shaping Canada’s responses to climate change.   The details of the consultation process have not been made available yet, but both Day and Laboucan-Massimo agree the process needs to be as comprehensive as possible for Indigenous concerns to be heard and incorporated.   "I think a climate change accord in Canada is necessary going forward. It would spell out how a constructive dialogue between Indigenous people and the federal government could take place," Day said.   Indigenous knowledge could also strengthen a national plan to address climate change. Scientists have already begun using Inuit knowledge and observations for studying weather patterns in the Arctic. Firsthand information like this can be used to test climate models.   “Because of the innate connection to the land, Indigenous people notice changes in the ecosystem, animals and water that others may dismiss. We’ve had centuries of observation, experience and intimate relationships to the land that has built this unique knowledge and sensitivity,” Laboucan-Massimo told DeSmog Canada. Laboucan-Massimo is a member of the Sakaw Nehiyawak (“Northern” or “Bush” Cree in English).   Laboucan-Massimo also sees the low-carbon economy as much more in line with Indigenous worldviews than fossil fuels economies.

“For the first time since the age of industrialization, there finally exists a technology that produces energy that is not in complete contradiction with Indigenous values and our way of life,” Laboucan-Massimo said. “The time is now for our communities to begin integrating renewable energy technology such as solar photovoltaic to help us become less reliant on fossil fuels.” 

Image: Melina Laboucan Massimo at a solar installation in her community of Little Buffalo in northern Alberta.

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Clean energy advocates transformed one of Western Canada’s oldest oil derricks Monday by draping it with pro-solar banners and surrounding it with solar panels that powered sun-themed music.

“It was a really nice day here,” Greenpeace Canada energy and climate campaigner Melina Laboucan-Massimo told DeSmog Canada, “and so sunny.”

Despite the November chill, Laboucan-Massimo said the day was perfect for capturing solar energy. 

"Even though it’s chilly there’s still sun,” she said. “You actually increase efficiency for solar panels when it’s cold, because they don’t overheat. So when it’s cold it’s still fine to produce energy, as long as you have the sun.”

Laboucan-Massimo and the other campaigners are working to demystify solar energy in Alberta, a province with massive untapped solar potential.

“I think a part of what Greenpeace and other organizations and First Nations have been really successful at is pointing out the problem, but I think we need to start pointing to solutions and really articulating what those are and how to implement them,” she said.

People often point to wind and solar power as potential alternatives, without them actually coming to fruition. This is the case, “especially in Alberta,” Laboucan-Massimo added.

“What we’ve learned is that Alberta has one of the highest solar potentials across the country but utilizes only one per cent of that solar potential.”

Laboucan-Massimo stands with the oil derrick in the background. Photo by Greenpeace Canada.

According to the European Photovoltaic Industry Association, the world’s cumulative photovoltaic capacity has more than doubled each year for the last four years. Each year, new global solar installations prevent more than 53 million tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.

However, the association notes solar energy in Canada “has expanded slower than some have expected.”

Laboucan-Massimo says the slow growth of solar in Canada, especially in Alberta, makes little sense.

“In Alberta, which is one of the sunniest provinces in the country, why is that happening?” she asks.

“We know it’s because of a lack of political will and because of a lack of policy that works to stymie renewable energy, and solar energy in Alberta.”

Alberta could and should be a green jobs and climate leader, Laboucan-Massimo said. But the reality is so far from that.

“We’re the number-one growing source of greenhouse gas emissions from tar sands as well as the number-one climate polluting province in the country because of tar sands.”

“I think that the fossil fuel industry has really had a stranglehold on the Alberta government,” she said.

That’s part of the reason Laboucan-Massimo and other solar advocates staged their solar action yesterday in Edmonton, a city with a long history of oil and gas development.

Laboucan-Massimo said is was in part to “really proclaim the power of the sun.”

“We know that solar energy and the solar viability is here and now.”

The team dropped several banners from a 70-year old oil derrick, reading “Solar: Alberta’s Next Economy” and “Solar: 100% Climate Safe.”

The group also set up solar panels on the site to power a radio and their phones. While they hung the banners they took music requests from the public using the hashtag #CatchUpAB.

“What we’re saying now is it’s time to transition away from dirty fossil fuels and transition to the renewable energy economy that is here and now,” Laboucan-Massimo said, adding Albertans are ready for economic alternatives.

“We look at Germany that has almost 400,000 jobs in the solar sector. Why doesn’t Alberta have that? We actually have a better solar potential than Germany and yet we don’t utilize that at all.”

Image Credit: Greenpeace Canada via Flickr

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Oil companies and fossil fuel investors seeking further developments in the Alberta tar sands have been dealt another setback with the publication of a report showing producers lost $17.1 billion USD between 2010-2013 due to successful public protest campaigns.

Fossil fuel companies lost $30.9 billion overall during the same period partly due to the changing North American oil market but largely because of a fierce grassroots movement against tar sands development, said the report — Material Risks: How Public Accountability Is Slowing Tar Sands Development.

A significant segment of opposition is from First Nations in Canada who are raising sovereignty claims and other environmental challenges, added the report, which was produced by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) and Oil Change International (OCI).

“Tar sands producers face a new kind of risk from growing public opposition,” Tom Sanzillo, director of finance at IEEFA, and one of the lead authors on the report, said. “This opposition has achieved a permanent presence as public sentiment evolves and as the influence of organizations opposed to tar sands production continues to grow.”

Opposition to tar sands unexpected

Steve Kretzmann, executive director of Oil Change International, added industry officials never anticipated the level and intensity of public opposition to their massive build-out plans.

“Public opposition has caused government and its administrative agencies to take a second and third look,” Kretzmann said. “Legal and other challenges are raising new issues related to environmental protection, indigenous rights and the disruptive impact of new pipeline proposals.”

He added anti-pipeline protests are keeping carbon in the ground, and changing the bottom line for the tar sands industry. 

“Business as usual for Big Oil – particularly in the tar sands – is over,” Kretzmann said.

The report said market forces and public opposition have played a significant role in the cancellation of three major tar sands projects in 2014 alone: Shell’s Pierre River, Total’s Joslyn North, and Statoil’s Corner Project.  

“Combined, these projects would have produced 4.7 billion barrels of bitumen that would in turn have released 2.8 billion metric tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere,” the 28-page report said. “This is equivalent to the emissions of building 18 new coal plants that would last 40 years each.”

Growing First Nations voices take tar sands story international

“I think it’s pretty inspiring and also uplifting to see the recognition of First Nations that have been very vocal and have articulated their staunch opposition to tar sands expansion in our traditional homelands,” Melina Laboucan-Massimo, a Greenpeace Canada campaigner from the Lubicon Cree, told DeSmog.

Laboucan-Massimo and other representatives from local First Nations like Eriel Deranger from the Fort Chipewyan have been campaigning for years to bring greater awareness to the human health and environmental impacts of rapid tar sands expansion. Laboucan-Massimo said she spent a lot of energy campaigning outside of Canadian borders, speaking to parliamentarians in the U.K., across Europe, as well as to U.S. Congress and the shareholders of major companies.

“We wanted to tell the story on the outside and really put that pressure on the Canadian government to do its due diligence and be accountable to its own citizens,” she said.

“I think that’s a part of what’s been effective in this campaign of accountability, that people not only in Canada but around the world were asking what is happening in Canada? Why is Canada such a climate laggard? Why is the Canadian government not listening to the voices of their own people?”

The growing environmental movement, she said, has been better at incorporating the voices of local First Nations living on the front lines of the tar sands. The movement also now represents a much wider range of social perspectives.

“When we work in coalitions – the environmental movement, First Nations and the labour movement – there’s such a convergence of diverse voices…we’re really starting to see growing public accountability and public opposition being seen and taken seriously.”

She added the future of the tar sands under the Harper government is “tenuous” because “you can see he has a very pro-tar sands agenda,” she said. But, she added, even five or 10 years ago very few Canadians knew what the tar sands were and had little awareness of the switch from conventional to unconventional, extreme forms of energy.

“Now people are quite aware that that’s what been happening and there has been a public dialogue created on that and there has been more pressure on the government to really address the environmental concerns, the health issues and indigenous rights violations. I feel like people really are a lot more aware of these issues now than in the past.”

Keystone XL delay shows tar sands "weakness"

The report says the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is one of the most talked about North American energy and political issues of the era.

“Once thought inevitable, the project and Canada’s plan to expand tar sands production have been confronted by an accumulation of economic and political risks creating a veritable ‘carbon blockade.’”

Project delays are taking a financial and political toll on proposed tar sands projects, the report said.

“The delays and cancellations have exposed the fact that tar sands investments, once thought to be highly lucrative, are showing signs of financial weakness. With growing public awareness and market hesitancy, expansion of tar sands production in Canada will remain contested terrain for the foreseeable future.”  

The report also noted that the tar sands sector faces a growing constellation of risks as project economics become pressured by low oil prices and shrinking revenues, rising costs, smaller profit margins, tougher capital markets, transport constraints, environmental challenges and protectionist legislation.

Nine of 10 leading tar sands producers in Canada have underperformed the stock market in the last five years, it said, adding industry experts have recently downgraded their outlook for future tar sands production.

“Tar sands pipeline campaigns are a recent example of how public advocacy efforts can alter capital investment decision making,” the report said.

“The Keystone XL campaign has managed thus far to delay a final governmental decision on the project while raising public awareness about the environmental costs of tar sands development.”

“These citizen interventions have resulted in increased diligence by government agencies with public health and environmental mandates, impaired the project development process of the capital markets and mobilized a permanent, political constituency in support of alternatives to tar sands expansion.”

The report noted there was an expectation that the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline would receive necessary approvals quickly when it was originally proposed in 2008 and be up and running by late 2011.

“Time and events changed this storyline,” the report added. “By 2011 Russ Girling, the CEO of TransCanada, said ‘There is no way we could have ever predicted that we would become the lightning rod for a debate around fossil fuels and the development of the Canadian oil sands.’”

According to a report in the Guardian, Canada has staked its energy future on a massive expansion of tar sands, which hold the world’s third largest reserve of crude after Saudia Arabia and Venezuela.

“But the huge amounts of water and solvents needed to extract oil from bitumen dramatically boost greenhouse gas output and, on latest production forecasts, will increase Canada’s CO2 emissions by 56 megatonnes by 2020,” the Guardian said.

Image Credit: People's Climate March by Zack Embree

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Alberta’s Energy Resources Conservation Board has released its findings following the investigation of the Rainbow pipeline spill in April 2011, and the results highlight longstanding issues both with Alberta oil companies and the bodies that monitor them.

In a story reminiscent of the Enbridge 6B pipeline rupture that dumped 20,000 barrels of crude oil into the Kalamazoo River in 2010, the report outlines the sequence of events from the initial alarm to the final shutdown.

Abnormal operating conditions were first detected at 6:32 pm on April 28, 2011. No fewer than five leak detection alarms went off between 6:35 pm and 7:22 pm that evening, and the pipeline was shut down and restarted three times before the flow of oil was finally shut off for good at 2:50 am on April 29.

The ERCB attributes this failure to heed the alarms to “a bias toward inaction,” saying Plains Midstream Canada, the pipeline’s operator, prioritized the flow of oil over following their own safety procedures and failed to appreciate the impact a spill would have on the area and its residents.

During the investigation, the board tried to interview the operator in charge at the time of the spill, but the company informed investigators that the individual is no longer employed at Plains.

The report stated that the location of the breach contributed to the size of the spill, describing it as “very challenging” due to wet muskeg and thick forest, underscoring one of the primary concerns raised throughout the Enbridge Joint Review Panel hearings: the accessibility of the of the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline in the event of an accident.

Prior to restarting the pipeline, Plains was required to fulfill a number of conditions including: conduct weekly aerial monitoring of the pipeline; implement a new risk assessment procedure to be incorporated into all operational and procedural documents; and demonstrate that enhanced pipeline maintenance protocol, particularly backfill practices, be fully integrated into standard procedure.

Perhaps more difficult for Plains to fulfill is the requirement to “successfully communicate to all Plains staff that the organization will fully support a console operator’s decision to shut down a pipeline.”

In addition to chastising Plains Midstream Canada, the report illuminates the lax standard to which the company and the pipeline’s previous owner, Imperial Oil, have been held.

Melina Laboucan Massimo, a climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace and a member of the Lubicon Cree First Nation whose traditional territory has been directly affected by the spill, criticized the Alberta government for failing to respond to numerous calls for consultation with environmental organizations and the public at large.

Greenpeace campaigner Melina Laboucan Massimo speaks with government officials at the scene of the spill in 2011. Photo: Greenpeace.ca

“The Energy Resources Conservation Board’s report is a damning indictment of pipeline safety in Alberta as yet another pipeline company has failed to protect Alberta’s environment and people and only received the lightest slap on the wrist,” she said in a statement Tuesday.

“This sends a message that pipeline companies can cut corners on safety, leaving our communities and our environment to pay the price.”

The Rainbow pipeline was originally licensed for crude oil in 1967, and Plains Midstream purchased it in 2008. The report points to an accumulation of failures spanning decades that led to the pumping of 28,000 barrels of sweet crude into the Peace River region of Northern Alberta.

The site of the rupture was one of nearly 100 segments to have been repaired over the lifetime of the pipeline, and this is not the first time repairs of this kind have failed.

As a result of the pipeline’s failure, 4.5 million litres of oil were released into the local wetlands, making this spill the worst ERCB had seen in over 30 years.

After the 2011 spill, the ERCB ordered Plains to conduct integrity digs on a total of 10 sites, and the company found cracks in the repair sleeves in all 10 cases.

The ECRB determined that Plains should have acquired all historical records of pipeline maintenance and failures upon taking over operations of the Rainbow pipeline in 2008, but even without those records, investigators said, Plains should have understood the risks involved in the aging infrastructure.

Further, had the company conducted proper inspections, it would have caught the cracks long before the spill occurred.

Inadequate training, supervision and communication also factored into the magnitude of the spill, the report noted, prompting the ERCB to require the company to complete a crisis communication audit as well as an emergency response exercise by the end of April.

No fines have been levied against Plains.

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