COP26 and Indigenous Experiences of Climate Change
Katy Cottrell
This November policy makers, businesspeople and civil society will gather at COP26 in Glasgow. The purpose of this event is to discuss how we can achieve the goals laid out in the Paris Climate Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Though the COP (which stands for Conference of the Parties) is an annual event, this year is particularly important. When the Paris Climate Agreement was accepted, it was agreed that every five years global leaders will return to the COP with updated and increasingly ambitious plans for achieving environmental sustainability. This year is the first time the review will take place, having been delayed a year by the coronavirus pandemic.
In attendance of COP26 will be a team from Futuros Indigenas, an organisation which strives to bring attention to indigenous experiences of climate change. With one of the themes of COP26 being collaboration, this event should give participants like the Futuros Indigenas group an opportunity to share their narrative. The climate crisis is most drastically affecting the world’s poorest and least politically powerful communities, making a collaborative approach crucial in developing responsible and impactful policy solutions. I spoke to a representative from the Futuros Indigenas group, Rosa Cruz, to hear more about what can be achieved by COP26 and their expectations for the event.
We begin the interview by discussing the nature of climate change policy and how this is so frequently dominated by the politically powerful. Rosa explains, ‘The COP is a bureaucratic event where decisions about mitigation and solutions to climate crisis are taken…we want to bring to this institutional space this other narrative about how communities are living through the climate crisis.’
Already we can see how Indigenous communities have been disproportionately affected by climate change. Indigenous peoples tend to be geographically located in regions that are more suspectable to extreme weather. For example, those who live in the artic area have been at great risk of rising sea levels and a loss of traditional food due to pressures climate change has placed on the artic ecosystem. Similarly, those living in the Amazon have suffered from infringements on their land rights with extractive industries altering traditional lands in order to mine for energy resources.
The Futuros Indigenas Team are highly motivated and are keen to use their voice, but they are not unrealistic about the challenges they face. ‘We know that the decisions [made] there (at COP26) are not ours… but that’s not a reason not to take the space…we need to make an effort to be heard and to say what we need to say’. One topic the group wish to address is the insatiable resource extraction carried out by the global elite which is incomparable to Indigenous people’s close relationship with the environment. Whilst approximately 92% of responsibility for the climate crisis lies with countries in the global north[i], indigenous communities are standing on the front lines, acting as defenders of the world's remaining biodiversity hotspots.
Finally, for Futuros Indigenas, COP26 offers an opportunity to expand their network with other Indigenous activists or those sensitive to the cause, ‘we want to create this space where we can think about the climate crisis with other Indigenous people who go to the COP’ Rosa tells me. ‘If we are able to make our network bigger with other indigenous nations who want to share their knowledge with us, we can work to continue to bring attention to these things. If we are able to do that, we are going to go back really happy’.
You can find out more about the work of Futuros Indigenas here: https://futurosindigenas.org/ and show your support for their network via social media channels @futurosindigenas.
[i] https://futurosindigenas-org.translate.goog/?_x_tr_sl=es&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=nui,sc
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