ICA’s Executive Director, Eriel Deranger, has been selected for the 2024 Climate Breakthrough Award. This prestigious program provides individuals with substantial, flexible, non-directive, multiyear support to develop, launch, and scale their boldest new work with breakthrough potential to address climate change.
Eriel will use the investment to launch a global initiative to support effective and resourced participation of Indigenous peoples in global climate negotiations and decision-making processes.
“Indigenous peoples have been some of the most formidable advocates in advancing climate change as a global political issue. We have been calling for the most progressive targets, mitigation, and adaptation strategies in the world and our communities are responding to the climate crisis in ways that draw from our traditional knowledge systems and merge colonial technologies to create locally controlled and sustainable energy, food, and economic climate solutions.”
ABOUT THE FUNDER
Climate Breakthrough
Launched in 2016, the Climate Breakthrough Award program is uniquely designed for social change leaders to develop, launch, and scale their new initiatives with breakthrough potential to address climate change. It’s structured to foster breakthrough-oriented work in policy, economic, and social transformation by blending the large-scale innovation focus of institutions known for pursuing breakthrough inventions with the nimble and entrepreneurial spirit of startup incubators and venture capital.
Visit here for more information about the program.
ABOUT THE PROJECT
International Indigenous Climate Justice Initiative
With a large investment from Climate Breakthrough and the ongoing support of Indigenous Climate Action, Eriel will launch a globally coordinated effort that allows for effective and resourced participation of Indigenous peoples in bringing forward climate solutions at the local and international levels. By working with a global network of Indigenous leaders, this new initiative will work to overcome key barriers to advancing Indigenous solutions, including enduring systems of colonization, inadequate funding, insufficient training opportunities led by and for Indigenous people, and a lack of direct information dissemination to communities.
This new endeavor is rooted in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), and will uplift Indigenous liberation and Land Back as real solutions to the climate crisis.
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