By Wolfgang Mayr

The final report of the 30th World Climate Conference does not offer much, according to the Indigenous Environmental Network. The rights of indigenous peoples are only marginal and footnotes, if anything, criticizes the indigenous network. The conference ended as a celebration of false solutions, the network says.

It’s business as usual, just with a new label: clean and renewable energy. Specifically, the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) is just continuing outdated programs like UN-REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation). The network believes that REDD’s forest protection goals have failed spectacularly, pointing to the global deforestation of not only rainforests.

The TFFF is not suitable for stopping violations of indigenous rights and violence against indigenous life. The programs linked to the TFFF could not be more absurd, especially so-called geoengineering, i.e., the use of technical means in the Earth’s geochemical and biochemical cycles.

The network is not surprised by the standstill; more than five thousand lobbyists have successfully influenced government representatives at the World Climate Conference over the past four years.

According to the network, these lobbyists represent 90 of the most powerful companies, oil corporations, mining industries, etc. Their “work” has been successful. The Declaration of the Rights of the Amazon, drafted by Latin American delegations and representatives of indigenous peoples, was not even acknowledged at the conference.

The position of the Indigenous Environmental Network is in line with that of the International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change. The forum demands:

• The implementation of the collective rights of indigenous peoples, including our rights to land and resources, self-determination, and effective participation in decision-making.
• Our knowledge should be recognized as a solution to the climate crisis.
• Guaranteed protection for indigenous peoples’ environmental and land defenders, as well as indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation.

A just and rights-based policy for the phasing out of fossil fuels, as well as a roadmap for ending deforestation worldwide that preserves our rights to land and resources, ensures self-determination, and protects indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation.

The Indigenous Environmental Network calls the World Climate Conference a betrayal of indigenous peoples; COP30 was a failure. And Dylan Hamilton of the Alliance of Non-Government Radical Youth (ANGRY) cannot imagine that the climate crisis will be “solved” by those who caused it.