Are you, are you going to be able to eliminate the need largely for diesel, for good?
[Chief] That's what we're working towards.
[Adrienne] Those aren't just words, carbon neutral by 2030 is his promise for his fly-in community
of just a few hundred people. To the world's politicians, he says,
if you want to see climate solutions, just watch Old Crow work. We sat down to chat in Whitehorse.
[Adrienne] Was leadership always in your future, do you think?
Never, I ran away from home at about 13 and got into a very violent street life.
Drugs, alcohol, running from the cops and I guess I just continued running ever
since that time and was always looking for my home and it took me a long time
to find that and to plant my feet somewhere and it was my people that gave me that strength.
So you go home, you go to Old Crow
and what changes do you start seeing in your community when you get there?
There are more lakes that have drained into the rivers, there are banks that have completely
fallen. You'll see trees leaning over now, what are called drunken forests. Willow species that
are becoming very aggressive, migration patterns of the caribou, one of our main resources
completely becoming ambiguous. We're seeing bird populations change, reductions in
insects. Everything that we can measure is changing and it's changing drastically.
[Adrienne] And so in 2019, you declared a climate emergency there and correct me if I'm wrong,
I don't think an Indigenous community had ever done that on this planet before?
[Chief] No, we were the first.
[Adrienne] So how was your voice being heard at COP, because you're here, you're not there?
Well, I went to COP25 in Spain and it was alarming. Myself and many other Indigenous people
traveled from all across the world and we were given a tiny 25 by 15 foot pavilion that the
voice of my people and my elders were
subjugated to this tiny little space away where no other country or anyone else went.
That was difficult and it was not honouring our experience or our voices and I left COP
and I went home and I did some serious thinking and reflecting and it came back to my people and
what my elders would tell me and what they expect and I realized that I don't need COP25
for the strength of where we're going as a world. If my community with a single solar project can
satisfy one quarter of our energy needs, if 250 people in a small village 80 miles north
of the Arctic Circle can displace a 189,000 litres of diesel fuel on their own volition,
then we're showing by a small community, that community is where the strength is.
So this year you're not going, but you are sending them a video message
and what is the essence of that message?
We cannot give our power to any politician, to any CEO, to anyone. This is a time in fact,
where we must embody and take our power as a household, as a family, as a community,
as a city, as a region. We should be having our own thoughts, we should be having our discussions,
embodying our identities and our powers because our children are looking to us.
[Adrienne] But you still have diesel, you are part owners of an airline that brings
the diesel that requires fuel to bring you fuel. I mean, how far can you take this?
[Chief] Oh we can take it very far and this project is just an indication of our first step.
This is a microcosm for where we are as a world as Canada being one of the last
in the G20 for meeting our subsidies and divestments from oil and gas as well as a
producer and the real answer is here is that I don't care what the issues are, it starts with
our people being galvanized around a direction, giving that direction and for us industry,
for leadership, for politicians, for all of us to work together to find these elegant solutions.
How do you break through to the rest of the country?
You know when you have John F. Kennedy standing in front of the world and saying, we are going to be
on the moon in 10 years, which is impossible and we do it, you can't tell me that it's not the same
with climate change. And here I am standing in front of the world saying by 2030, our village is
going to be carbon neutral. What will that signal for other communities who are saying that they
can't do it? If a rural community and if my humble community can do this, any community can do it.
What is the weight of all this responsibility on you?
[Chief] Well, let's say that at the beginning of my journey with this, there was some sleepless
night. I've been forced to look in the mirror of our environment and what it tells me about
us as a people and it's really important that every Canadian and every peoples look into this
mirror and face the hard aspects of it, but come through with the most beautiful aspects of what
make us people. This is what my people have taught me in a very inhospitable environment.
Thank you so much, I so appreciate your time.
Mahsi' Choo.