FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 9, 2019
2018 was a key year for the recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights in UN climate negotiations, according to a new report. Authored by the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC) and the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), Indigenous Peoples and Traditional Knowledge in the Context of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change – 2019 Update compiles the gains the global indigenous community has made towards recognizing the need to guarantee participation and the protection of indigenous rights under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), an international treaty working to limit our interference with the climate system.
“The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007) is now more than an aspirational or moral statement,” said Alberto Saldamando, Human Rights Counsel to the Indigenous Environmental Network. “As this valuable publication illustrates, by jurisprudence and growing recognition and use, it truly is now a universal human rights standard incumbent on States’ human rights obligations, now including the collective rights of Indigenous Peoples.”
Due to their close relationship with nature, indigenous communities live on the front lines of climate change yet contribute the least to its causes. At the same time, indigenous peoples hold vital knowledge about the environment that can serve as a crucial resource. The report details the steps taken by the international community since 2001 to recognize the value of and facilitate indigenous groups’ engagement at every stage of our climate response, from research and technology, to adaptation and mitigation.
The report comes out just a day after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC’s) Special Report on Climate Change and Land, which highlights the importance of land tenure rights and the participation of indigenous peoples in climate solutions. In light of the IPCC’s findings, today’s report compiles the broad range of consensual decisions already adopted by all States Parties to the UNFCCC, upon which the global community should build to fulfill their commitments to ensure indigenous peoples’ involvement in critical policymaking processes to combat climate change.
“In addition to the legal imperative to respect indigenous rights, shaping climate policies with the full and effective participation of indigenous peoples results in stronger, more effective, and more ambitious climate solutions. Yet even with long-standing recognition of the importance of indigenous people’s participation in climate policy-making — including within the Paris Agreement itself — true participation and public access to information have remained a challenge at the highest levels of climate governance,” says Sébastien Duyck, Senior Attorney at CIEL. “This compilation shows how far indigenous peoples have come in gaining recognition of their important role within the UNFCCC — and how far we still have to go to ensure that indigenous peoples can meaningfully shape global climate policy moving forward.”
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The International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC) was established in 2008, as the Caucus for Indigenous Peoples participating in the UNFCCC processes. The IIPFCC represents the IP Caucus members from seven regions of the world; namely; Asia, Asia-Pacific, Africa, Arctic, Latin America, North America and Russia who are present/attending the official UNFCCC COPs and inter-sessional sessions of the SBSTA/SBI bodies in between COPs. Its mandate is to come into agreement specifically on what IPs will be negotiating for in specific UNFCCC processes. IP representatives attending the meetings have their own organizations at subnational, national and global levels which have their own agenda, priorities and own proposals that they may carry and push for during the IP Caucus meetings.
The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) uses international law and institutions to protect the environment, promote human rights, and ensure a just and sustainable society. CIEL is a non-profit organization dedicated to advocacy in the global public interest, including through legal counsel, policy research, analysis, education, training, and capacity building.
Contact: Marie Mekosh, Communications Associate, CIEL, mmekosh@ciel.org, +001.202.742.5847