Two months after he was shot, activist Jacob Johns led an Indigenous delegation to COP 28 climate conference

Jacob Johns spent over five weeks in the hospital after he was shot at a demonstration in New Mexico. Just two weeks after he left the hospital, he was well enough to lead a delegation of Indigenous representatives to COP28, the United Nations’ annual climate conference in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

“It was utterly exhausting,” said Johns, who is back home recovering in Spokane. During his near-death experience, he renewed commitments about his life.

“One of the things I agreed to do was continue this work,” the 40-year-old artist and activist said.

While he was on a trip preparing for the conference, Johns, who is Hopi and Akimel O’odham, was invited to join a vigil and rally outside a Rio Arriba County building in Española, New Mexico. The event celebrated the county postponing the reinstallation of a controversial statue of Spanish conquistador Juan de Oñate that originally stood in a different part of the county and was removed amid the George Floyd protests in June 2020.

At the demonstration on Sept. 28, a man wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat, who was identified by authorities as 23-year-old Ryan David Martinez, pulled out a handgun and shot Johns once in the torso, according to the Albuquerque Journal, which was present for the incident.

“I never once expected to be shot during a prayer gathering,” Johns said, noting that it was mostly a group of elders, women and children participating.

Johns said Martinez was there with a group of “far-right agitators” and was acting particularly aggressive, getting in their faces and shouting racist slurs. Johns stood in the way as the shooter attempted to charge toward an altar that was made on the vacant statue’s pedestal where everyone was gathered.

Martinez pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted murder, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and a hate crime. He is in jail without bail as he awaits trial.

“He was charged with attempted murder, but I actually died,” Johns said. “My heart stopped.”

When he died, he met with a council of elders in the spirit world and begged to come back, he said.

“I was told that it would be difficult, that I had to work harder,” Johns said.

Given another chance at life, he intends to keep his promise.

Johns is a community-supported organizer for the Backbone Campaign, an organization that uses creative activism for progressive causes, and a member of the U.S. Climate Action Network. He had been planning for over a year for the first Indigenous Wisdom Keepers delegation to attend the United Nations Conference of the Parties, where climate agreements are made among countries.

“I wanted him to go but didn’t expect him to go,” said Jeff Ferguson, a member of the Spokane Tribe who traveled as a delegate with Johns.

Ferguson said the biggest concern was making sure Johns didn’t get sick. The summit is a stressful environment since the negotiations can get tense and heated.

Johns was careful to pace himself and save his energy for the most important events.

The 15-member delegation included not only Native Americans, but Indigenous leaders from across the planet representing each bioregion. Their goal was to distill Indigenous wisdom into policy, and to shift the hearts and minds of decision -makers.

In addition to attending policy meetings and sitting on panels, members prayed and performed ceremonies with traditional song and dance. Some wore traditional regalia, which drew a lot of attention and led many to ask who they were and what they were doing.

Price gouging at these huge events make it hard for Indigenous voices to afford a seat at the table, Ferguson said.

Johns said the conference was a positive experience, but he wishes there had been more progress on curbing fossil fuels.

Countries need to fully fund commitments they have made at past conferences before making new promises, he said. The United States especially has a responsibility to lead the way since it has historically been the greatest emitter of CO2, he added.

Another venue through which Johns explores his activism is the power of art. His black-and-white portraits of Native people and civil rights leaders include contrasting splashes of color that can evoke an emotional reaction in a way that a dry policy document can’t.

Along with policy and art, peaceful protest is another integral part.

Johns got involved in climate activism during the Dakota Access Pipeline protests in 2016 near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, where excavators disrupted an area that had ancient burial grounds. That made him want to work on larger scale, which led him to the international climate conferences.

He interrupted a speech by President Joe Biden at the previous conference in Egypt in 2022, by standing up, shouting a war cry and holding a banner. He and three others were escorted out by security and had their access badges removed. To be allowed to return, Johns had to sign paperwork saying he wouldn’t do that again, he said.

“It is important to focus on systematic change and what we can do to disrupt and alter systems of oppression,” Johns said.

But he learned from that experience that it is not productive to only be against things. New paradigms need to be offered to make the old systems obsolete, he said, which motivated him to organize the delegation to share ancestral wisdom.

Johns is still recovering from his wound, with three drains in his abdomen connected to his pancreas and liver. His spleen also had to be removed, which has complicated the healing process.

He spent time recuperating from the trip, and now Johns is preparing for the next conference which will take place at the end of this year in Azerbaijan, where he hopes to focus on building bilateral agreements among the home countries of the delegates.

Attending these conferences is expensive, but they are the most effective way to fight climate change, in his opinion, since they are where the critical decisions get made.

“If there is a better way to focus our energy I don’t know what it is,” Johns said.

“Anything we can achieve now will have an affect on future generations.”