Voices of Truth, Voices of Hope: Indigenous Peoples & Local Communities Report on COP26

At this year’s COP26 in Glasgow, Indigenous peoples represented the second largest civil society group in attendance. Indigenous peoples and communities often lie at the frontier of climate change, experiencing some of the earliest and most disruptive effects of the global climate crisis. This is all too ironic given the fact that indigenous peoples have imparted so many lessons on sustainable living and environmental stewardship, yet they continually bear a disproportionate burden of the damages of anthropogenic climate change. Their perspectives on COP26 — its accomplishments and shortcomings, its promise and notable exclusions — are critical to understanding where the multilateral dialogue on climate action stands today. On November 23, Confluence was honored to co-host the webinar, “Voices of Truth, Voices of Hope: Indigenous Peoples & Local Communities’ Report on COP26” which was organized and moderated by Nina Kantcheva, Senior Policy Adviser for IPLC Engagement for the UNDP.

The 3-hour session was the sixth and final session of the Equator Prize dialogues. The webinar was co-hosted by the Equator Initiative, Nina Kantcheva, and Confluence’s Dana Lanza and included a seasoned panel of speakers from around the globe: Johnson Cerda from Ecuador, Heylin Reyes from Costa Rica, Ernestine Leikiki from Cameroon, Stanley Kimaren from Kenya, and Javier Kinney Sevidzem from the Yurok Tribe, U.S., who spoke on a wide scope of topics related to COP26 negotiations and outcomes. Later in the session, we heard from the UNDP’s Kimberly Todd on Article 6 and carbon markets.

Nina and Dana opened the session with a brief introduction to COP26 and the involvement of indigenous peoples as a collective civil society. While COP26 did not meet all expectations and left room for continued negotiation and advocacy, Nina offered a valuable reminder from Secretary General António Guterres that COP outcomes will always be a “compromise” that reflects the political will of global delegations. Unfortunately, as evidenced by the concessions made for coal at the last minute within Article 6, environmentally damaging industries are still integral to private sector economies, labor markets, and livelihoods in many densely populated countries like India and China. Nonetheless, COP26 yielded some valuable progress including the Glasgow Climate Pact, Paris Agreement Rulebook, and Article 6. Alongside negotiations, there were a series of initiatives and financial commitments announced, including $1.7B earmarked by a group of private donors and counties to support the land tenure of indigenous countries.

Johnson Cerda, a veteran Indigenous advocate and director of Conservation International, kicked off the panel with first-hand observations from COP26 negotiations, specifically about Article 6. According to Cerda, the Indigenous Caucus enjoyed much better visibility at this year’s COP with their own pavilion and office spaces for the first time to convene and share information during the week’s proceedings. Since the Paris Agreement, the Caucus has pushed for direct references to Indigenous peoples in the preamble and operational language of COP pacts. This year, the draft of the Glasgow Climate Pact included Indigenous recognition with little to no pushback from participating delegations. This was an important optical advance for the Caucus as a whole. As for shortcomings, Cerda outlined disappointment with the way access was restricted to Article 6 negotiations and the limited references to loss and damages in final pact language (issues that are uniquely important to indigenous people). Cerda mentioned the need for capacity-building within the Indigenous Caucus to broaden their expertise toolkit and to be more effective in multilateral negotiations.

Subsequent guest speakers shared mixed thoughts about indigenous visibility at COP26 and the prioritization of nature-based vs. market-based solutions. Stanley Kimaren, the founder of Indigenous Livelihoods Enhancement Partners (ILEPA), stressed the importance of repurposing existing knowledge and introducing nature-based solutions already developed by Indigenous peoples in policy negotiations at the national level. Javier Kinney, the Forest Carbon Project Manager of the Yurok Tribe, emphasized the importance of agency and placing Indigenous people in decision-making roles. He also shared examples of regenerative business models from within the Yurok tribe and invited webinar participants to engage in strategic interventions with tribal leadership.

Kimberly Todd from the UNDP’s Climate and Forests Team joined the session to run through a detailed summary of COP26 outcomes. She outlined key results including the cover decisions embedded in the Glasgow Climate Pact, a working group established for the Global Goal for Adaptation, the Paris Agreement rulebook and, specifically, Article 6, which determines NDC cooperation modalities and, ultimately, will inform international carbon market approaches. Within the operational language of Article 6, Todd focused specifically on 6.2 and 6.4 which include direct reference to indigenous peoples within cooperative approaches.

There is much more work to be done; however, COP26 resulted in several milestone indicators for Indigenous recognition in multilateral climate action moving forward. Indigenous representatives had hoped for robust and specific reference to full Indigenous participation as well as strong, independent oversight of carbon markets. Ultimately, progress towards these goals was only partial at COP26, but important precedents were set within operational language of the Glasgow Climate Pact that can be a valuable foundation for the future. We want to thank our moderator, panelists, and participants for an important, timely, and richly informative session, and we look forward to offering continued support for the Indigenous Caucus’ stakeholders and constituents in ongoing climate negotiations at the national and global level.