COP29: What world leaders can learn from indigenous communities

As global leaders gather for COP29, they must remember that climate change is a symptom of our broken relationship with nature, and indigenous people can help repair that

Today, despite grand statements from multinational corporations and warm words from politicians, we continue to damage the natural world at a rate it cannot possibly sustain. Our forests, corals, mangroves, and wetlands are under siege and almost invisible to the market. The financial incentive to destroy a forest is roughly 40 times greater than that to protect it, and an area equivalent to 450 football fields is destroyed every 10 minutes.

No technology will ever be able to provide the air, water and soils we need just to exist. The only solution is to look after what remains and to repair what we have lost.

As the world turns its attention towards COP29 in Azerbaijan, where global leaders will meet this week to wrestle over climate finance and nationally determined contributions, they must remember that climate change is merely a symptom of our broken relationship with nature. 

Solutions for preserving nature and safeguarding against climate change already exist in the ancestral knowledge and practices of indigenous communities, the most effective guardians of the environment. When the world watched in horror as Brazil’s Amazon raged with fire this year, lands occupied by the Kayapo people somehow eluded the flames. Their success in preventing illegal encroachment of their forest meant it remained resilient. 

Indigenous peoples look after 80 per cent of the world’s remaining biodiversity but receive less than one per cent of global climate finance. Progress was made in Glasgow at COP26 when $1.7bn was pledged in support of indigenous communities, but too much of this has been swallowed up by multilateral intermediaries. Not enough has been allocated to protect indigenous land rights or address the controversial issue of mineral extraction in indigenous territories for the energy transition.

What we need in Azerbaijan

In Azerbaijan we need to see meaningful participation of indigenous groups in the negotiations and decision-making, recognizing traditional knowledge and valuing indigenous contributions to climate change mitigation and adaptation. The funds pledged in Glasgow need to be renewed, increased, and accompanied by a plan to ensure they reach those doing the critically important work of protecting and repairing nature. 

But it is not simply a matter of increasing funding for nature. Across the board, we need to ensure the money that flows through major financial sectors contributes to the solution and not the problem. Far more finance is still going towards harming nature and climate than working to support it; environmentally harmful subsidies are estimated at a staggering $1.7 trillion, and big banks are pumping hundreds of billions into deforestation. These numbers dwarf anything governments and philanthropy will ever be able to provide in direct grants.

If financial institutions redirected finance away from investments that harm nature and climate, and governments reformed the subsidy system, the gigantic finance for nature gap could be almost entirely closed in one move.

Leaders at COP29 must look to the countries already showing it is possible to develop their economies by working with the natural world. For instance, Costa Rica has become one of the most prosperous countries in Central America whilst breaking the link between production of agricultural commodities and deforestation through a government-led initiative that pays local communities to protect the natural ecosystem. 

For now, governments taking action are the exception but there is no reason why they cannot become the norm.

By learning from the likes of the Kayapo people of Brazil and from countries like Costa Rica, and aligning political will with indigenous knowledge and financing at COP 29, world leaders can ensure these shining examples become the norm.

Juan Carlos Jintiach is executive director of the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities (GATC)

Zac Goldmsith was minister for overseas territories, commonwealth, energy, climate and environment