This article is published as part of the Global Indigenous Affairs Desk, an Indigenous-led collaboration between Grist, High Country News, ICT, Mongabay, Native News Online, and APTN.
For more than 20 years, Tom Goldtooth has been listening to conversations about the negative impacts of fossil fuels and carbon markets on indigenous peoples. On Wednesday, Goldtooth and the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) called for a permanent halt to carbon markets. In addition to being an ineffective means of mitigating climate change, the organization argues that: They harm, exploit and divide indigenous communities around the world.
The recommendations, addressed to indigenous activists, policy makers and leaders at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), are the most comprehensive brief on the issue the commission has ever heard. This will result in suspension. If adopted, this position would put pressure on other UN bodies, such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), to take a similar position. The growing urgency is COP29 The gathering is planned for later this year, when the provisions of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement on carbon market structure are expected to be finalized.
“A moratorium on bogus climate policies like carbon markets is long overdue,” said Goldtooth, the IEN executive director who lives in the Diné and Dakota states. “This is a matter of life and death for the people of our country, especially as it relates to the mitigation measures being negotiated under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. Article 6 is all about carbon markets and it is a smokescreen, This is a loophole that prevents people from agreeing to phase out carbon.”
![A man in a red shirt speaks into a microphone](https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/tom-goldtooth.jpg?quality=75&strip=all)
![A man in a red shirt speaks into a microphone](https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/tom-goldtooth.jpg?quality=75&strip=all)
Dominique Faget/AFP via Getty Images
The network's language about „fake climate action“ is intentional. Tamra Gilbertson, the organization's climate justice program coordinator and researcher, said false climate solutions are ones that look like tools to cut emissions and fight climate change, but that allow mining companies to drive the crisis. He said it is anything that allows them to continue to profit from fossil fuels.
„Carbon markets have been set up by polluting industries,“ Gilbertson said. “The premise that carbon markets are a good UNFCCC mitigation outcome or a good mitigation program is itself a flawed concept. And who put it together, we know it.”
The carbon market moratorium called for by the network would end carbon removal projects such as: Carbon capture and storage; forest, soil and ocean offsets; Nature-based solutions. Exchange of debt and nature. biodiversity offsets, and other geoengineering techniques.
This year's moratorium recommendation builds on a similar proposal put forward by IEN at last year's forum, which called for a suspension of carbon markets until indigenous communities can „thoroughly examine impacts and make appropriate demands.“ There is. This call led to an international conference in January where indigenous experts discussed the impact the green economy has had and will have on local communities. Ultimately, participants produced a report detailing how green economy projects and initiatives can create new ways to colonize Indigenous lands and territories.
Dario José Mejia Montalvo of Colombia's Zenu tribe participated in the January meeting and previously served as UNPFII chair. He highlighted the report at a United Nations conference last week.
“The transition to a green economy starts with the same extractivist-based logic that prioritizes the private sector, which is guided by the national economic interests of multinational corporations, and which is driven by the national economic interests of indigenous peoples, the fight against climate change, and global warming. Ignore the fight,'' Montalvo said, according to a UN translation of the speech, which he gave in Spanish.
![A man wearing textiles speaks in front of a blurred green background](https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Dario-Montalvo.jpg?quality=75&strip=all)
![A man wearing textiles speaks in front of a blurred green background](https://grist.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Dario-Montalvo.jpg?quality=75&strip=all)
Evaristo Sa/AFP (via Getty Images)
Goldtooth and Gilbertson said that while the January report established broad consensus on the negative effects of the green economy, IEN said the report's recommendations were unclear and did not go far enough to hinder carbon market growth. He said he felt there was no such thing and that was why IEN established the organization. They are asking for a permanent suspension.
“In this climate emergency that we face, we have to do everything we can from all directions, because we don't have much time left,” Gilbertson said. If carbon markets are included in Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, as currently written, and become a stronger international network, “we will see a whole new world of interconnected global carbon markets like we have never seen before.” And we're stuck with it.“
Under the Paris Agreement, countries submit plans detailing how they will reduce emissions and increase carbon sequestration. Article 6 provides a pathway for countries to voluntarily cooperate and trade emissions to meet climate goals. More specifically, Section 6.4 would create a centralized market and lead to large-scale implementation of emissions reduction trading. The nuances of these structures and the way carbon markets are expressed in Article 6 have far-reaching implications. report Published in November by the International Emissions Trading Association, or IETAshowed that 80% of the nation indicated they would use or intend to use carbon markets to meet climate goals.
In their current form, carbon offset projects listed in Article 6 of the Paris Agreement will further threaten indigenous land tenure and access to resources. If finalized in November, the pilot project is expected to begin as early as January 2025.
At this year's forum, organizations including the United Nations Development Program, Climate Focus, People's Forestry Project, and Rainforest USA discussed new efforts to protect the rights of indigenous peoples within carbon markets. In particular, attention is growing on policies that more effectively incorporate free prior informed consent (FPIC) into carbon offset projects. However, Kimalen Liamit Irepa-KenyaThe Indigenous-led nonprofit said FPIC is a foundation that needs to be established before it can be better recognized for Indigenous self-determination – allowing tribes to decide for themselves whether they want to participate in carbon market projects in the first place. Authority for making decisions.
“FPIC without the means to enable self-determination is useless, because what do you agree to if you don't have rights to your land? What do you agree to if you don't participate in decision-making governance arrangements? ” says Liamit from Kenya's Maasai tribe. Enabling self-determination includes the protection of indigenous land sovereignty and security of land tenure.
Liammit said that in carbon market projects, free, prior and informed consent has become a strategic tool and a disruptive practice in disseminating information, rather than a way to gain meaningful consent from tribes. It says that there are. Requires intentional and full disclosure to tribes of what they are agreeing to when participating in carbon market projects, allowing tribes to digest the information, consult internally, provide feedback, and You need time to learn to say no to important things. ”
What's notable for Liamit is that carbon offset companies don't advocate strongly, if at all, for greater self-determination for the indigenous communities they work with.
„They don't sharpen knives to butcher themselves,“ he says.