Climate Criminals Put Profits over Humanity at COP28

Dubai, UAE — The outcomes of the UNFCCC 28th Conference of Parties has left Indigenous Peoples and frontline communities across the world sitting in disappointment as world leaders put forward watered-down climate commitments and text that continue to compromise our future. 

The biggest takeaway from this year’s climate summit is the grotesque depth of greed and disregard for humanity as a whole. There was a huge missed opportunity to implement real climate solutions, but bullies from the Global North reaffirmed their false solutions to maintain their extractive economies, and so, lined their pockets with their reinforcement of settler-colonialism and imperial dominance over the Global South. 

These false solutions, such as carbon markets, carbon capture and storage, hydrogen, nuclear energy, and climate geoengineering are fast-tracking a death sentence for Mother Earth and Indigenous Peoples who are on the frontlines of the climate crisis. These false solutions are nothing short of dangerous distractions, and are unproven techno-fixes that commodify Mother Earth – a violation of the sacred.

Moreover, this COP had an overwhelming, disproportionate and record-breaking number of fossil fuel lobbyists, over 2,400, which outnumbered Indigenous delegates 7 times over. Nation-states and the UNFCCC have made one thing ultimately clear – our lives, communities, lands, and futures do not matter to them. The only negotiations that took place at COP, were that climate criminals negotiated away our collective, livable future.

“The UN climate change conference has failed humanity and Mother Earth. We watched  firsthand as the fossil fuel polluters and wealthy governments manipulated developing countries to undermine real action on climate change. Indigenous leadership, Indigenous knowledge holders, and youth spoke with one voice demanding a rapid transition for a phase out of fossil fuels at source. Our strong messages of fossil fuel phase out fell on deaf ears and instead, more false solutions will accelerate climate change and deforestation with a push for carbon capture and storage, nature based solutions, hydrogen and nuclear power in the Global Stocktake and carbon markets, offsets and private sector finance in Article 6”.- Tom BK Goldtooth (Diné/ Dakota), Executive Director, the Indigenous Environmental Network.

Despite world leaders lacking the necessary courage to make the historical and necessary climate action to meet the 1.5 degree celsius warming target, Indigenous Peoples and those in our network will continue to fight for environmental and climate justice. We are not defeated, as we have a long line of ancestors fueling our resistance, resilience, and determination, to protect the sacredness of Mother Earth and Father Sky. We will not sit idly by, we will continue to implement our own climate solutions, rooted in our worldviews, values, Traditional Indigenous Knowledge, exercising our inherent responsibilities and internationally-affirmed collective rights, and work towards an Indigenous Just Transition. 

Today we mourn, tomorrow we continue the fight.