- As COP29 runs Nov. 11-22 in Baku, Azerbaijan, Indigenous leaders look ahead to show their strong participation, although many leaders are setting their sights on this conference to prepare better for the next COP.
- With a package of new funds introduced this year, Indigenous leaders whom Mongabay spoke with plan to push negotiations for improved access to direct funds to fight the harsh impacts of climate change.
- Along with improved access to funds, the leaders say they seek ambitious commitments to the loss and damage fund, a just energy transition and carbon market regulations.
As the U.N. biodiversity conference recently concluded with both historic achievements and disappointments for Indigenous leaders, delegates are now quickly shifting their attention to the other big conference: today’s U.N. climate gathering, or COP29.
With about 40,000 people registered to attend the conference, Indigenous delegates spoke to Mongabay about their key priorities and list of outcome desires. These include, they said, pushing forward ambitious commitments on the loss and damage fund, access to direct financing, a just energy transition and regulation on carbon markets. They also seek to push the recognition of Indigenous rights and knowledge at the core of negotiations and forest conservation initiatives.
The conference will take place Nov. 11-22 in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Though COP29 will focus on financial matters, some Indigenous leaders said they anticipated more decisive commitments taking place the following year.
According to Giuseppe Olo Villalaz, an Indigenous Guna leader from Panama, delegates don’t have any big hopes for climate action, given that the host country is tied to and economically dependent on the fossil fuel industry. U.S. elections concluding with Donald Trump as president also dampened their expectations of a big finance or climate action deal.
However, the conference is an opportunity to prepare for next year’s climate gathering, COP30, said Villalaz, also a representative on the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests (AMPB) board of directors.
Climate finance and direct funds
When it comes to climate finance, Indigenous peoples said they have been sidelined with a meager portion of direct funding coming their way. According to a report, only 2.1% of funding tied to a climate finance pledge announced at the 2021 U.N. climate conference went directly to Indigenous and local communities in 2022.
“We have been pushing hard for global climate funds to directly reach our territories through the Mesoamerican Territorial Fund, but the funds currently trickle down in small amounts,” Villalaz said.
Gideon Sanago, a Maasai leader from PINGO’s Forum, told Mongabay that a serious commitment to increased access to direct funds for Indigenous communities is what they are looking for.
“To access direct funding, there exist numerous bureaucratic hassles, lack of alignment of funding priorities with community needs, language barriers and challenges to gain accreditation,” Sanago said. These are the major barriers that undermine their possibility to guard their lands and biodiversity, he told Mongabay.
Among a package of funds to be introduced at the conference is the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG), a renewed climate finance goal starting at $100 billion a year to support the needs and priorities of industrially developing nations. Another is the Climate Finance Action Fund (CFAF), which aims to raise $1 billion from fossil fuel producers to support industrially developing nations.
While CFAF will be operational at the conclusion of the initial fundraising round at COP29, sources said they’re preparing themselves to access the fund.
“In collaboration with other Indigenous delegates, we have made some progress in engaging with the [CFAF and loss and damage] funds to respond to the damages and submit our proposal on direct access. We expect to be heard because being the stewards of conservation, we are at the frontlines of climate crises,” says Sanago, who is also a board member at the Santiago Network on Loss and Damage.
The Loss and Damage Fund, designed to support nations affected by climate crises, was announced at COP28 in 2023. The fund has so far received $661 million, a portion policymakers say is much too small. Parties are in a deadlock over who should pay, how much should be paid and if the funds should be either loans or grants.
The new Board of the Loss and Damage Fund (LDF), which convened its first meeting in April, faces a major task this year to operationalize the fund and develop a resource mobilization strategy to deliver funds to vulnerable countries and marginalized communities.
“We can no longer sit and wait for climate hazards to impact us,” Sanago told Mongabay. “Indigenous peoples have always and will be needing funds from all climate financing landscapes because it is the only option left for us.”
Given that each territory has its own unique priorities and challenges, he said the funding mechanism should consider that there is no “one-size-fits-all approach” to providing direct funds to Indigenous peoples, Villalaz said. They should take a bottom-up approach, he told Mongabay.
Agreements on carbon markets?
At the 2023 conference, delegates debated Article 6, allowing for countries to achieve their new emissions reduction goals under the Paris Agreement using carbon markets. But they could not reach an agreement over its operationalization due to opposing views from negotiators. Negotiators expect that standards for the creation and operationalization of the market will be negotiated and potentially agreed to at the upcoming conference.
As the debate continues to take space at COP29, the views of Indigenous leaders and activists also remain divided on carbon markets.
Some reports state carbon offset projects undermine Indigenous people’s rights and create a “transactional” relationship with nature. Other Indigenous leaders said the voluntary carbon market with high-integrity credits has the potential to address $4.1 trillion in the nature financing gap by 2050, supporting Indigenous peoples and local communities.
Though both sides agree that if the markets were to exist, Indigenous and human rights should be part of its operationalization.
“Indigenous peoples are united to ensure their fundamental rights,” said Onel Masardule, the executive director at the Foundation for the Promotion of Indigenous Knowledge. “The autonomy of each Indigenous person and community to decide to accept or reject involvement in the carbon market according to their reality must be respected.”
A just transition
Amid growing demand for critical minerals for renewable technologies and the energy transition, Indigenous delegates said they will share their list of principles on a just energy transition with government officials at the conference.
The principles, like achieving consent and fair partnerships, were agreed to at a three-day summit in Geneva in October. It brought together 95 Indigenous representatives from seven sociocultural regions to discuss a fair and equitable path to just transition. Among those who signed off on the document were the Indigenous leaders part of the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform, a formal body within the U.N. convention on climate change (UNFCCC).
“COP29 could be pivotal to set the tone of the UNFCCC parties to elevate their ambition on human rights and the rights of Indigenous peoples,” said Lakpa Nuri Sherpa, co-chair of the International Indigenous Forum on Biodiversity (IIFB).
Concern about the energy transition is salient for delegates because about 54% of Indigenous and community lands contain or are near critical minerals. As was the case in certain communities, rights advocates say these lands and peoples are at risk of mining projects that don’t respect their land rights, access to resources and free, prior and informed consent.
Delegates said they hope to influence government representatives at the conference to ensure the principles for a just energy transition are included in the updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Countries have to update their NDCs by February 2025.
Sources said this does not mean they are against mining or renewable energy projects. In fact, they hope the conference strengthens commitments to fair partnerships with companies where communities’ rights and fair access to benefits are enforced.
Banner image: Families are migrating from Gardi Sugdub, a tiny island belonging to the Indigenous Guna Yala people of Panama, packed with houses to the edge of the water, due to sea level rise. Image by Michael Adams via Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0).
What was achieved, and not, for Indigenous and local leaders at COP16
FEEDBACK: Use this form to send a message to the author of this post. If you want to post a public comment, you can do that at the bottom of the page.
Credits
