ABSTRACT
While Indigenous peoples have long traditions of environmental stewardship, they face heightened vulnerability from climate change and are less likely to benefit from efforts to transition to renewable energy. It is now known that the mining required to supply renewable energy technologies will need to take place in lands on or near Indigenous peoples’ territories if mining occurs in the U.S. Some have argued that the negative impacts of such mining are an inevitable harm of the transition to renewable energy. But this argument misses the fact that Indigenous peoples are already not decision-makers in major energy decisions, including those of renewable energy. Part of the problem of environmental injustice is that Indigenous peoples’ infrastructure and administrative capacities have been curtailed. There need to be important questions asked about to what degree Indigenous peoples currently exercise leadership in major energy decisions pertaining to climate change.
