Alberta First Nations want consultation, benefits from oilsands carbon storage plans

Several Alberta First Nations have told the province's government and energy industry that they must be consulted and share in the benefits of carbon capture projects near their lands that are crucial to making the oilsands more climate friendly.

Several Alberta First Nations have told the province's government and energy industry that they must be consulted and share in the benefits of carbon capture projects near their lands that are crucial to making the oilsands more climate friendly.

"(The companies) want to work together to reduce climate effects," said Cameron Alexis, head of Tribal Chiefs Ventures, which includes six Treaty 6 First Nations near Cold Lake, Alta.

"However, those big players didn't come in the first instance to the First Nations. We're an afterthought and that's not right."

The six largest oilsands producers have formed a group called Oil Sands Pathways to work together to find a way to reduce the industry's greenhouse gas emissions and bring them to net zero.

Its plans rely heavily on carbon capture and storage, which would collect carbon dioxide from large emitters at oilsands mines, pipe it to a central location and inject it deep underground in geologic formations that would keep the carbon safely out of the atmosphere.

But Alexis points out much of that infrastructure, as well as the underground formations being used, would lie on or near First Nations traditional territory.

"We want full consultation and full inclusion."