We were crowded around a table in a packed
cafeteria, the roar of some 20,000 other COP 15 delegates making my translation
job all the harder. I was sitting next
to Marlon Santi, president of Ecuador’s powerful national indigenous
organization CONAIE. On my left was Tito Puanchir, president of the country’s
Amazonian indigenous confederation (CONFENAIE).
Both had traveled for the first time to a UN climate meeting in order to
represent thousands of indigenous Amazonians whose rainforest territories are
extremely vulnerable to climate change and critical to stabilizing the global
climate.
With the cold dark of Copenhagen’s winter
outside, we were inside conversing with author Naomi Klein, Santi and Puanchir
about the ongoing climate negotiations. Santi
and Puanchir questioned why those that got us into this mess – the World Bank,
the International Monetary Fund, and the Inter-American Development Bank, among
others – through policies and loan packages that have increased fossil fuel consumption
and deforestation, are now in the position of handing out the prescription for
the sickness they’ve caused.
Klein aptly called it a ‘festival of
impunity’. Industrialized countries were
looking to offset their emissions instead of reducing them domestically, and
refused to acknowledge their ‘climate debt’ to the rest of the world. Rising developing nations like China, India,
and Brazil were fighting for exemption from any significant cap on C02
emissions and resisting outside monitoring and verification. Each country cited the lack of progress from
other countries to justify their own failure to commit. Meanwhile, the member countries of the
Alliance of Small Island States may be underwater by time any meaningful
decision comes out the UN.
Santi and Puanchir were particularly disturbed by
proposed market based mitigation mechanisms that would put a price on the CO2
in their forests, which could give companies and countries a
get-out-of-jail-free card. New studies
show that rainforest areas under indigenous control have a far greater chance
of remaining intact. Yet, indigenous
peoples don’t have a seat at the table in these negotiations. They must instead try to influence their own
governments, with who they are often at odds with back home.
Case in point, Ecuadorian governments officials
went pale upon seeing Santi and Puanchir in the halls of the Bella Conference
center. Until now, the government had
free range at international meetings, promoting projects and positions unchecked. They now knew they’d be held accountable in
front of their COP peers, as well as back in Ecuador.
Santi and Puanchir made their mark in
Copenhagen. They gave dozens of
interviews to the press (a full page spread on Puanchir appeared in the local
paper) and sat on panels at side events. They were also active participants in
the indigenous caucus, fighting for strong language in the draft treaty text
that would respect the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and
guarantee the indigenous peoples right to Free, Prior and Informed
Consent.
After
lunch, as we navigated the byzantine system of hallways and concentric circles
of power, Puanchir summarized the importance of their long Nordic trip. “We may not be scientists, but we know better
than anyone else how the earth is changing,” he explained. “What may seem like small shifts have a major
impact on our chances for survival as a people, and ultimately our survival as
a planet. We have thousands of years of
traditional knowledge that should be part of any climate change solution. Respecting our rights is not in conflict with
climate change solutions, it’s a necessary part of them.”
