Native Energy & Climate Campaign


“The Native Energy and Climate Campaign strengthens and builds the capacity and political power of Indigenous Peoples to address the impacts of fossil fuel energy development in Indigenous communities and motivate the creation of sustainable and clean energy and climate policies at all levels of governance.”


Below are links to the various Native Energy initiative pages where you will find articles, position papers, press releases, links, maps, video, and more.

These pages are constantly being updated with current information.
Energy Justice Climate Justice
Canadian Indigenous Tar Sands Campaign
 		Carbon Trading, Carbon Offsets and REDD
REDOIL Tribal Campus Climate Challenge

Native Peoples Native Homelands

U.S.- based Native Nations respond to climate change threats. Nearly 400 Native leaders, scholars, elders and Tribal College students from across the country, joined by scientists from the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), came together at a watershed gathering, the Native Peoples Native Homelands Climate Change Workshop II, to formulate a collective response to the far-reaching impacts of climate change on Native lands and communities. The Climate Change Workshop, held November 18-21 at the Mystic Lake Casino & Hotel in Prior Lake, Minnesota. At its conclusion, participants issued a milestone document, the Mystic Lake Declaration (attached), to offer solutions that can help Tribal communities and policy makers form plans to address climate change impacts that threaten the traditional cultures and life ways of Indigenous peoples. The Declaration will be taken to Copenhagen for presentation at the United Nations Climate Change Conference.

Native Nations respond to climate change threats Mystic Lake Declaration lays out Indigenous solutions

THE MYSTIC LAKE DECLARATION



12 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT TREE (FOREST) 'OFFSETS'

Click here to read or download the entire document - PDF Format

Click here to read or download the entire document - Word Format

12 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT TREE (FOREST) 'OFFSETS'

Active Carbon Pool:

Carbon moves between forests, atmosphere and oceans in a complex natural rhythm of daily/seasonal/annual and multi-annual cycles. The overall amount in all three carbon stores together rarely increases in nature. This is ‘active’ carbon.

Fossil Carbon Pool:

Some carbon is locked away and rarely comes into contact with the atmosphere naturally. This ‘fossil carbon’ is stored permanently in coal, oil and gas deposits and therefore is not part of the active carbon pool. When humans mine and extract these reserves this inactive fossil carbon does not go back in the ground, but is added into the active carbon pool, disrupting a delicate balance. This is one of the reasons that the concept of ‘offsets’ is flawed. Offsets allow extraction of oil, coal and gas to continue, which in turn increases the amount of fossil carbon that is released into the active carbon pool disrupting the cycle. That is why campaigners argue that genuine solutions to climate change require us to keep fossil carbon (oil, coal and gas) in the ground. “Offsets are bad for the climate because they delay a shift away from our oil addiction!”



On May 12, 2009, IPS brought voices from the frontlines of the economic crisis to Capitol Hill for a briefing with the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Testifiers included workers and leaders from Jobs with Justice, Right to the City, Grassroots Global Justice, National Day Laborers Organizing Network and the National Domestic Workers Alliance. These groups have formed a new network called the Inter-Alliance Dialogue. It was their first joint event.

 

Please Sign On To the Energy Justice in Native America: A Policy Paper for Consideration by the Obama Administration and the 111th Congress
Take Action Flyer

Click here to view/download/print flyer

Scroll to the end of the introduction letter below to view the latest list of Indigenous Communities, Organizations, and Tribal Goverments who have signed on to this policy paper. The Energy Justice in Native America: A Policy Paper for Consideration by the Obama Administration and the 111th Congress was submitted along with the signatories to the U.S. Department of Energy on March 31, 2009. We will be updating this list and reporting these updates to the DOE through this website.

Dear Friends & Colleagues,


The undersigned organizations are writing to ask you for your signature on the attached policy paper (click here to read or download) urging the Obama administration to adopt the recommendations we have laid out for them regarding sustainable energy development on tribal lands. This is a collaborative document created to draw attention to the growing opportunities found throughout Native America. Indian country has extraordinary potential for renewable energy that must not remain untapped. Our policy initiatives demand the government take action and give tribal lands the attention they deserve.

Clean energy and green jobs will provide a positive benefit to Indian reservations more so than non-renewable coal, oil or nuclear power combined. Dirty power created from nuclear substances and dead fossil fuels on tribal lands merely expose Native people to the dangers of shortsighted energy development. The land and its inhabitants end up paying an expensive price for dirty energy cultivation.

All the while, tribal reservations maintain a high potential for wind and solar energies. The incoming administration must address the cultural, health and economic burdens dirty energy creates by taking action to terminate all government incentives and financial backing for investment in non-renewable energy. In place of dirty investment, the incoming administration must provide the financial subsidies necessary to encourage clean energy investment within Indian lands.

By signing onto this policy paper, you are promoting clean energy opportunities throughout Native America. Your adoption of these initiatives will help provide the persuasion and weight necessary to influence our new administration. In celebration of your support and others like you, we will send this policy paper to the Department of Energy in response to their request for information regarding deployment of renewable energy in Indian Country. We will also be sending this paper to the Secretary of Energy, the Secretary of Interior and other cabinet members to gain support for this initiative. Therefore, we strongly urge you to promote these efforts by signing onto this document and passing along this request for other organizations to do the same.

To sign your organization or tribal government onto this document for submission, please e-mail your name, title, organization, and contact information to Jihan Gearon at ienenergy@igc.org and Nellis Kennedy at greeneconomy@honorearth.org.

In Solidarity,

Indigenous Environmental Network
Honor the Earth
Intertribal Council On Utility Policy
International Indian Treaty Council

List of Organizations as of April 19, 2009:


1) Desis Rising Up & Moving (DRUM)
2) Restoring Eden
3) Dooda (NO) Desert Rock
4) Indian People Organizing for Change
5) Owe Aku, "Bring Back the Way"
6) C-Aquifer for Dine'
7) Black Mesa Water Coalition
8) Society for Threatened Peoples International, in consultative status to the UN ECOSOC and in participatory status with Council of Europe
9) Earth Peoples
10) Fired Up Media
11) Climate Advocacy Associate Campus Progress
12) Yellow Bird, Inc
13) Eyak Preservation Council
14) Fort Berthold Environmental Awareness Committee
16) Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands(REDOIL)
17) Nuclear Information & Resource Service (NIRS)
18) New Mexico Environmental Law Center
19) National Wildlife Federation (NWF) - Tribal Lands Conservation Program
20) St. Joseph Catholic Church, Laguna Pueblo, New Mexico
21) St. Anne Catholic Church, Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico
22) ENN Eco Native Peoples News
23) Speak Out
24) Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR)
25) Buffalo Council: Fort Lewis College RSO
26) Global Response
27) Science and Environmental Health Network (SEHN)
28) Just Transition Alliance (JTA)
29) Fond du Lac Reservation Air Program
30) Protect Sacred Sites Indigenous People, One Nation
31) NDN News
32) L.ocal E.nvironmental A.ction D.emanded, Inc.
33) Citizens Coal Council
34) Alianza Indigena Sin Fronteras, "Indigenous Alliance Without Borders"
35) Healthlink
36) Alaska's Big Village Network
37) Data Center
38) Cass Lake Times
39) Greenaction
40) National Network for Immigrant & Refugee Rights (NNIRR)
41) Rainforest Action Network (RAN)
42) Cass Lake Hospital
43) Peace & Justice Center
44) Lipan Apache Women Defense
45) Global Justice Ecology Project
46) Nulankeyutomonen Nkihtahkomikumon (NN), "We Take Care of Our Land"
47) The International Sami Jounal
48) Meigs Citizens Action Now!
49) Tonatierra
50) Tamalpais NatureWorks
51) Apache Survival Coalition
52) Seventh Generation Fund (SGF)
53) U.S Fulbright Fellow
54) Safe Drinking Water Foundation
55) Global Young Greens
56) Christopher Reynolds Foundation (NY)
57) Ohngo Gaudadeh Devia, Goshute, "Mountain Community"
58) Native Community Action Council (NCAC)
59) Southern Energy Network (SEN)
60) Laguna Acoma Coalition For A Safe Environment
61) SHAWL Society
62) Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA)
63) Environmental Protection & Natural Resources Department for Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community
64) Sierra Club

Indigenous peoples in the United States, Canada and the Americas have experienced systematic and repeated violations by oil, gas, and mining industries infringing on our inherent right to protect our traditional lands and our treaty rights. These industries violate our human rights and create unconscionable destruction to traditional territories that have sustained us for time immemorial.