BELEMAS, Brazil (AP) — Local people are used to adapting, so when the power went out during the opening event of this year’s United Nations climate talks, they took action. Participants from all over the world sweated through songs, dances and prayers, improvising without microphones and cooling themselves with fans made of paper or leaves.
But the ill-timed power outage has fueled a wave of skepticism that this year’s summit, dubbed the “Indigenous Peoples’ COP,” will deliver on organizers’ promise to be front and center at the event on the edge of the Amazon rainforest, home to many indigenous groups.
Indigenous peoples protect much of the world’s biodiversity and are among the least contributors to climate change, but are disproportionately harmed by the devastation it causes.
“We are working in a mechanism and we are working in an institution that we know was not created for us,” said Thalia Yarina Cachimuel, a Kichwa-Otavalo member of A Wisdom Keepers Delegation, a global group of indigenous people from around the world. “We have to work 10 times harder to make our voices part of the space.
This year’s climate change talks, which run until November 21, are expected to fall short of an ambitious new deal. Instead, organizers and analysts are calling this year’s conference an “implementation COP” aimed at fulfilling earlier promises.
A conference that is not easy to attend
The climate talks, known as the Conference of the Parties, or this year’s COP30, have long left indigenous peoples out or sidelined.
Many of them are not strongly represented in governments that have often violently colonized their own people. Others face language barriers or travel difficulties that prevent them from attending conferences such as COP30.
The Brazilian government said hosting this year’s summit in Belem was in part a tribute to indigenous groups who have mastered sustainable living in Earth’s wild spaces.
But indigenous groups, like other activists, have traditionally been excluded from climate negotiations unless individual members are part of a country’s delegation. Brazil has included them and is encouraging other nations to do the same. It was not immediately clear how much Belem did.
But there’s a big difference between being visible and being included in the substance of the negotiations, Cachimuel said.
“Sometimes that’s where the gap is, right? How who can go to high-level climates, who can go to high-level dialogues, you know, who are the people who meet with states and governments,” she said.
She is concerned that inclusive efforts will not continue at future COPs.
Edson Krenak, Brazil head of the Krenak people and indigenous rights group Cultural Survival, said he saw less indigenous participation than he expected. He attributed this, in part, to the difficulty of finding accommodation in Belem, a small city that has struggled to quickly expand accommodation options for COP30.
He said it was disappointing when indigenous people were not involved in policy making from the start, but they were expected to follow it.
“We want to create this policy, we want to participate in the creation of solutions that really dream,” Krenak said.
Still, the fact that this COP is in the Amazon “makes the indigenous people the hosts,” said Alana Manchineri, who works with COIAB, an organization of indigenous peoples like herself in the Amazon basin.
Fighting for voices to be heard
Lack of power was not the only problem when opening the Indigenous People’s Pavilion. Speakers do without an official interpreter.
One presenter, Wis-waa-cha of the Coast Salish and Nuu-Chah-Nulth lands, said the lack of attention to such details can leave people feeling “constantly rejected in a very passive way.”
The office of the Brazilian presidency did not immediately respond to a question about why there was no interpreter at the event. They said they were working to fix the power outage as soon as possible.
World leaders should focus on direct funding to communities in need, said Lucas Che Ical of Ak’Tenamit, an organization that supports education, climate change and health initiatives in indigenous and rural villages in Guatemala.
He knows that often the agreements reached in past COPs do not have a direct positive impact on the lives of indigenous peoples. He hopes this year will be different.
“I’m an optimistic person,” he said, speaking in Spanish. “There is a prospect that yes, it can have good results and that the governments that make the decision can make a favorable decision.”
Above all, he said, he hopes that decision-makers at this COP “can listen to indigenous villages, local communities and all the villages of the world where they live in poverty and are part of the effects of climate change.”
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