Native Energy & Climate Program

“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.”

The Climate Justice Movement is Growing!

On both the national and international level, the climate justice movement is growing in number and strength. Grassroots communities from North America and around the globe are banding together to combat the attempt to commodify nature through the carbon market and instead fight for the rights of Indigenous Peoples and Mother Earth.

In 2008 IEN created the Global Well Being: Energy, Climate and Environmental Justice project within the workplan of the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance (GGJ) (http://www.ggjalliance.org/). And although the Global Well Being Working Group (GWB) got off to slow start, over the past year GGJ has started developing into a climate justice movement leader. From April 21 – 22 the GWB, hosted by the Bus Riders Union (http://www.thestrategycenter.org/project/bus-riders-union), met in Los Angeles to discuss our strategies over the next year and a half. Similar to IEN, GGJ is engaging in the “Road to Rio”, which includes strategic stops at the UN climate negotiations in Durban, South Africa this November (http://www.cop17durban.com/Pages/default.aspx), Cochabamba +1 in Bolivia next spring, and the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (http://www.uncsd2012.org/rio20/), otherwise known as Rio+20, in June 2012.

Additionally, BRU and GGJ hosted a community event dedicated to climate justice during Earth Day on April 22nd. IEN Executive Director Tom Goldtooth participated in this event and broke the down the impacts of REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) policies on Indigenous Peoples. Watch the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSBcLL4uLhk.

Internationally as well, the climate justice movement has grown, thanks in great part to the leadership of Indigenous President Evo Morales and the direction provided during the World Peoples Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother in Earth in Bolivia in April 2010 (http://pwccc.wordpress.com/). This past February, IEN traveled to Dakar, Senegal to participate in the World Social Forum. Along with social movement leaders from across the globe, IEN drafted the “Dakar Climate Justice Statement of Unity” which lays out the key political issues, strategies, and convergence moments of the international climate justice movement over the next year and half. Keep an eye on IEN’s website for the final release of this document in May 2011.

The IEN Native Energy & Climate Campaign is hosting monthly conference calls of our “IEN CJ Team” to strategically discuss and plan our work on the Red Road to Rio. Please email Jihan Gearon at ienenergy@igc.org if you would like to participate in these calls.

 

Tar Sands | Tribal Campus Climate Challenge | Climate Justice | Energy Justice | Carbon Trading, Offsets and REDD

NOTE: This page, along with most of the IEN website is currently undergoing redesign and reorganization to streamline and archive the volumes of information; news, policy statements, documents, video and news collected over the years. If you are looking for a specific file/document, etc. and are unable to find by our site search please click here to contact the IEN website administrator with your request.

The following are links to documents, position papers, press releases, etc., that have been issued by IEN, and community groups effected by fossil fuel production.

Oil:
ENERGY DEVELOPMENT IN INDIAN COUNTRY ON THE UPSURGE WITH CONCERNS FROM TRIBAL GROUPS

Bemidji, Minnesota - Energy development in Indian country is again becoming big business. The Osage in Oklahoma and Crow tribes are pursuing coal-bed methane projects, while the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold reservation in North Dakota are entering the oil refinery business. The Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute tribes in Colorado are pursuing oil development with an eye towards coal-bed methane development. The Fort Mohave tribe along the lower Colorado River in Arizona and California are leasing their land to California based energy company, Calpine Corporation, to build a natural gas electrical generating plant. Easements allowing the building of electrical transmission lines throughout Indian country are being negotiated, often without adequate input from grassroots tribal members. Read the rest of this document.

Gas:
Nine Mile Canyon, UT: Drilling for gas seen as threat to rock art

Concerns about protecting archaeological treasures are pitted against hopes to develop natural gas leases in Nine Mile Canyon. Drilling gas exploration wells could damage pictographs and other ancient treasures in the canyon and a tributary, according to the curator of archaeology at the College of Eastern Utah museum, Price.

Indian art on the canyon walls covers three cultures - the archaic, Fremont and Ute. The earliest may be 2,000 years old. Agency officials say they mailed copies of the assessment to 30 groups and individuals. They also posted a brief notice on the state BLM web site. Read the rest of this document.

Coal bed methane project worries ranchers, irrigators

Some South Dakota and Wyoming ranchers and irrigators are worried about an oil company's proposal to dump millions of gallons of water from Wyoming coal bed methane wells into the Cheyenne River drainage. They say the water will be high in sodium bicarbonate and other salts, which could ruin irrigated land and harm aquatic life, streamside vegetation and wildlife. They also say the higher water levels would disrupt river crossings for landowners. Read the rest of this document.

Coal:
'Clean' Coal? Don't Try to Shovel That.

By Jeff Biggers
Sunday, March 2, 2008; B02

Every time I hear our political leaders talk about "clean coal," I think about Burl, an irascible old coal miner in West Virginia. After 35 years underground, he struggled to conjure enough breath to match his storytelling verve, as if the iron hoops of a whiskey barrel had been strapped around his lungs. In 1983, during my first visit to Appalachia as a young man, Burl rolled up his pants and showed me the leg that had been mangled in a mining accident. The scars snaked down to his ankles.

"My grandpa barely survived an accident in the mines in southern Illinois," I told him. "He had these blue marks and bits of coal buried in his face."

"Coal tattoo," Burl wheezed. "Don't let anyone ever tell you that coal is clean."

Clean coal: Never was there an oxymoron more insidious, or more dangerous to our public health. Invoked as often by the Democratic presidential candidates as by the Republicans and by liberals and conservatives alike, this slogan has blindsided any meaningful progress toward a sustainable energy policy.

Democrats excoriated President Bush last month when he released a budget calling for more -- billions more -- in funds to reduce carbon emissions from coal-burning power plants to create "clean coal." But hardly a hoot could be heard about his proposed cuts to more practical investments in solar energy, hydrogen fuel and home energy efficiency.

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