Ozawa Bineshi Albert wants the world to stop relying on fossil fuels. So last year, the co-executive director of Climate Justice Alliance flew from the U.S. to Egypt to make her voice heard at COP27, the international conference on climate change where world leaders gather to negotiate new commitments to battle the climate crisis.
But at COP27, Albert, who is Anishinaabe and Yuchi, noticed that Indigenous peoples like herself were outnumbered by fossil fuel lobbyists. She was also struck by how many people touted nuclear energy as an alternative to burning oil and gas.
“Nuclear is one of the most dirty, damaging energy sources, particularly for Indigenous people,” she thought. “It touches Indigenous communities all along its lifecycle from where it gets mined, to where it gets processed, to where nuclear power plants are placed, to where nuclear waste gets stored.”
That observation was just one indication of how the perspectives, and experiences, of Indigenous peoples aren’t always reflected in the broader environmental movement. As COP28 kicks off in the United Arab Emirates this week, hundreds of Indigenous advocates are making their way to Dubai with the hope of ensuring that their communities aren’t overlooked by global leaders.
Though the conference doesn’t officially begin until Thursday, the work has already started. Jennifer Tauli Corpuz is Kankanaey-Igorot from the Philippines and is managing director of policy at Nia Tero. She spent eight hours Tuesday in an auditorium with about 350 fellow members of the Indigenous Peoples Caucus, a delegation representing Native peoples, working on the details of a two-minute opening statement that the Caucus will be allowed to give during COP28’s opening ceremony. Corpuz says it’s not easy to distill everyone’s perspectives and issues into such a short statement and the work required interpreters in five languages.
Apart from ending fossil fuel reliance, Indigenous advocates at COP28 want to ensure that funding to offset the impacts of climate change reaches their communities; ensure Indigenous knowledge is seen as a solution to climate change; and prevent governments and private actors from violating their rights, especially as those actors pursue green energy projects.
Corpuz said the caucus plans to approve advocacy papers outlining their positions Wednesday. Then comes the work of convincing negotiators to listen. But it’s not easy.
The estimated 350 Indigenous peoples at COP28 is an attendance record for Native advocates, but it’s still far fewer than the 600 fossil fuel lobbyists who attended COP27 last year. As well, the most important work at the conference, negotiating the exact language of international climate change treaties, gets done behind closed doors among designated representatives from United Nations member countries.