Energy Newsroom

Indigenous delegates at a UN conference on climate change in Alaska could not agree on a final summit document due to disagreements over oil and gas drilling on native lands.

Some delegations at the UN-sponsored Indigenous Peoples' Global Summit on Climate Change were demanding a complete moratorium. Others disputed that language, saying that the use of fossil fuels should be phased out but indigenous people should be allowed to develop their resources.

A detailed analysis released today by two environmental organizations raises a red flag on the carbon offsetting provisions of the leading climate bill now moving through Congress.

The report from International Rivers and the Rainforest Action Network calls for removing giant carbon pollution loopholes from the Waxman-Markey bill, also known as the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES). Otherwise, the report warns, the carbon cap will fall far short of hitting its targets.

The report says:

Protesters stand in front of an entrance to the US Capitol Power Plant during a march by the Capitol Climate Action Coalition to demand that the plant switch from coal to natural gas power on March 2, 2009 in Washington, DC.

Tim Sloan / AFP / Getty

The call rang out through Washington early on the morning of Mar. 2: the biggest act of civil disobedience against global warming in American history would not, in fact, be snowed out.

A rare March snowstorm on Monday did not stop several thousand global-warming protesters from marching on the Capitol Power Plant (CPP), where they called for an end to coal-burning.

Draped in winter jackets, hats and scarves on an unseasonably cold day, protesters made their way from the park behind the Rayburn House Office Building to the power plant, with some carrying signs demanding “Green Jobs Now.”

Hundreds of U.S. Capitol Police officers lined the streets and guarded the plant from second-level outdoor catwalks.