Indigenous Climate Action To Defend Indigenous Rights at UN Climate Conference COP28 in Dubai

MEDIA ADVISORY
November 21, 2023

Dubai, United Arab Emirates - Indigenous Climate Action (ICA), an Indigenous-led climate justice organization from Turtle Island (Canada), will be sending a delegation to Dubai later this week for preparation and attendance at the 2023 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP28).

WHO: Indigenous Climate Action

WHAT: UNFCCC COP28

WHEN: November 30, 2023 — December 13, 2023

WHERE: Dubai, United Arab Emirates

As ICA prepares for COP28 alongside international Indigenous peoples movements, there are growing concerns that negotiations are simply allowing business as usual for the fossil fuel sector, false solutions, and state and corporate actors that have historically violated human and Indigenous rights. ICA’s report on Decolonizing Climate Policy in Canada highlights how current climate policies put forward at home have consistently failed to meaningfully respect the rights of Indigenous Peoples and Nations. This has led to weak and ineffective policies that do not address the root cause of the climate crisis, nor contribute to needed reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions at source. 

“We have seen these climate negotiations continue to prioritize false solutions over addressing the root cause of the climate crisis. False solutions do nothing but steal time,” states Jayce Chiblow, ICA’s Education and Training Manager. “Inclusion of Indigenous peoples and our traditional knowledge systems within climate negotiations and policymaking is essential for real climate solutions and climate justice for all.”

While on the ground in Dubai, ICA will participate in the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform (LCIPP), the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC), and the It Takes Roots Coalition. 

During negotiations, ICA will be following and acting on key moments that could threaten the rights and self-determination of Indigenous peoples globally, including:

• Climate Financing

• Just Transition and Adaptation 

• False solutions and Nature-based Solutions

• Carbon Markets and Other Market-based Solutions

ICA’s COP28 delegation will contribute to a growing chorus of delegates calling out false solutions and climate policies that only serve corporations, white and settler communities, and ongoing colonialism and predatory capitalism. 

As Carole Monture, ICA’s Climate Leadership Coordinator, shares, “There is no other forum that allows for high-level policy interventions, to push back against the erasure of Indigenous people in climate negotiations and to highlight the necessity of Indigenous knowledge in addressing the climate crisis.”

“Indigenous communities have long been calling attention to solutions driven by our ancestral wisdom and relationships with our traditional lands and waterways,” states Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, ICA’s Executive Director. “Our solutions expose the fallacy of colonial logic that consistently seeks to reduce the climate crisis to an economic crisis that corporations and colonial governments benefit from.” 

By uplifting Indigenous knowledge and demanding the legal rights of Indigenous peoples, ICA is continuing to fight for a decolonial and climate-just future for all.

ICA delegates will be attending and speaking at a number of side events. To follow along with their work and see upcoming events, please visit www.indigenousclimateaction.com/cop28. 

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