Indigenous People Reflect On What It Meant To Participate In COP30 Climate Talks

BELEM, Brazil (AP) — Indigenous people filled the streets, I rowed on the waterways And protested They took to the heart of the venue to make their voices heard during the United Nations climate talks, which should have given them a voice like never before at the annual conference.

As the so-called COP30 talks concluded in Belem, Brazil, on Saturday, Indigenous people reflected on what the conference meant to them and whether they were heard.

Brazilian leaders had high hopes that the summit in the Amazon would empower the people who live on the land and protect the biodiversity of the world’s largest rainforest, which helps prevent climate change as trees absorb planet-warming carbon pollution.

Many Indigenous people who participated in the talks felt a strengthening of solidarity with tribes in other countries, and some appreciated the small victories in the final outcome. But for many, the talks fell short of representation, ambition and real action on climate issues affecting indigenous people.

“This was a COP where we were visible but not empowered,” said Thalia Yarina Cachimuel, Kichwa-Otavalo member of the Wisdom Keepers Delegation, a group of Indigenous people from around the world.

first paragraph of the main political text It recognizes “the rights of Indigenous Peoples, as well as their land rights and traditional knowledge.”

Taily Terena, an indigenous woman from the Terena nation in Brazil, said she was happy that these rights were explicitly mentioned in the text for the first time.

But Mindahi Bastida, an Otomí-Toltec member of the Keepers of Wisdom Delegation, said countries should push harder for agreements on how to phase out fuels such as oil, gas and coal and “view nature as sacred, not as a commodity.”

Many countries have pushed for a roadmap to reduce the use of fossil fuels, which when burned release planet-warming greenhouse gases. Saturday’s final decision made no mention of fossil fuels, leaving many countries disappointed.

Brazil also introduced a financial mechanism through which countries can donate; This mechanism was supposed to help encourage nations with abundant forests to keep those ecosystems intact.

Although the initiative has received financial commitments from several countries, Jacob Johns, Wisdom Keeper of the Akimel O’Otham and Hopi nations, said the project and the idea of ​​creating a market for carbon are false solutions that “don’t stop pollution, they just move it around.”

“They’re giving companies a license to keep drilling, burning, destroying as long as they can show a balance written on paper. This is the same colonial logic disguised as climate policy,” Johns said.

From the start of the conference, some Indigenous participants were concerned visibility is not the same as real power. Eventually this feeling persisted.

“What we are seeing at this COP is a focus on symbolic presence rather than ensuring the full and effective participation of Indigenous Peoples,” Sara Olsvig, president of the Inuit Circumpolar Council, wrote in a message after the conference ended.

Edson Krenak, Brazil director of the indigenous rights group Cultural Survival and a member of the Krenak people, thinks negotiators haven’t done enough to visit the forests or understand the communities that live there. He also did not believe that the 900 Natives given access to the main venue were enough.

Brazil’s minister for Indigenous peoples, Sônia Guajajara, who is herself indigenous, framed the convention differently.

“There is no denying that this is the biggest and best COP in terms of Indigenous participation and heroism,” he said.

While the delegates’ decisions left some Indigenous attendees feeling rejected, many said they felt empowered by participating in demonstrations outside the venue.

When the summit began on November 10, Amazonian Indigenous leader Paulo André Paz de Lima felt that his tribe and others did not have access to COP30. The first week he and a group Demonstrators broke the barrier to enter the venue. Authorities quickly intervened and stopped their advance.

De Lima said this action helps Indigenous people amplify their voices.

“Once we crossed the barrier, we were able to enter the COP, we were able to enter the Blue Zone and express our needs,” he said, referring to the official negotiation area. “The closer we got to the negotiations, the more visibility we got.”

The protest at this COP was not only meant to attract the attention of non-Indigenous people, but was also designed as a way for Indigenous people to communicate with each other.

On the final night before the agreement was reached, a small group with signs marched into the venue, protesting examples of violence and environmental destruction, from the recent killing of a Guarani teenager on their territory to the proposed Prince Rupert Gas Transmission Project in Canada.

Leandro Karai, of the Guarani people in South America, said of solidarity among Indigenous groups: “We have to come together to show, you know? Because they need to hear us.” “We are stronger when we are with others.”

They sang to the steady beat of the drum, locked arms in line and marched down the long hall of the COP chamber towards the exit, breaking the silence in the corridors as negotiators remained deadlocked inside.

Then they appeared loudly under a yellow sky.