After two intense weeks in Glasgow for COP26, we are back home reflecting on the outcomes. While the Glasgow Pact does not meet the action needed to address the climate emergency, the civil society presence was truly inspiring. Indigenous peoples, frontline communities, women, and youth attended in full force organizing for climate justice and against the fossil fuel industry, which held significant influence over the official negotiations at COP26.
Considering the daunting reality that the Amazon is at the tipping point and in a state of emergency, we went to Glasgow in solidarity with our partners to support the urgent call to permanently protect 80% of the Amazon by 2025. We went to amplify Amazonian Indigenous voices, solutions, and resistance, in particular women and youth defenders; denounce false solutions, including forest-carbon offsets and net-zero commitments; and to call for banks to exit Amazon oil & gas.
The pandemic travel restrictions aggravated the summit’s inequities. Yet, Indigenous representation was substantial both inside and outside the COP, including the largest delegation of Brazilian Indigenous leaders and youth in the history of climate negotiations calling for “Land Back” as a climate solution.
“We are not the ones who are creating the pollution, the ones who are making the problem, but we are the people who are being killed by it. This is environmental genocide. Although Indigenous people form only 5 percent of the global population, we protect 80% percent of the Earth’s biodiversity. Yet, we continue to be excluded from decision-making. Governments need to reforest their minds and understand that climate change is already a reality, not a problem for the future. We are here to echo the call of Mother Earth because she is crying, and it is our duty to echo her call while we still have time. What happens when she stops crying?” stressed Sonia Guajajara, Executive Coordinator of APIB (Association of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil).
Helena Gualinga, from the Kichwa People of Sarayaku in the Ecuadorian Amazon, said to a crowd of thousands: “Behind every killing of a land defender, there is a company behind it, there is a government behind it, there is a name behind it. U.S. and European banks are financing and investing in Amazon destruction every day.” She added: “As frontline communities we were in the front of the march, because we are putting our bodies on the line to protect the Amazon rainforest against extractive industries that are responsible for climate change today.”
Over two weeks, we organized and participated in numerous side-events, press events, presentations, protests, and marches, including the Youth Climate Strike and the Climate Justice march with over 100,000 people in the pouring rain. Our team also included Nina Gualinga and Gasparini Kaingang. Together, we accompanied Amazon women defenders and a Kichwa youth delegation from Sarayaku and worked in solidarity with our partners and allies at COICA, CONFENIAE, AIDESEP, APIB, ANMIGA, Midia India, Minga Indigena, Global Amazon Assembly (AMA), Amazon Sacred Headwaters Initiative, Indigenous Environmental Network, Indigenous Climate Action, and the Black Indigenous Liberation Movement (BILM), among others.
Key Activities and Accomplishments
- Amazon Exclusion Press Briefing inside COP 26 featuring: Jorge Perez (President of AIDESEP), Maricela Gualinga (VP of Sarayaku), Helena Gualinga (Sarayaku), Tzeporah Berman (Stand.earth) and Leila Salazar-López. Watch the webcast here.
- Participated in the Rights of Nature International Tribunal on Climate. Read the Tribunal’s verdict on Case 1: False Solutions to the Climate Change Crisis and Case 2: The Amazon as a threatened living entity here.
- Amazonian youth lead Youth Climate Strike. Amazonian youth from Ecuador and Brazil led the front of a march of thousands into a central square of Glasgow and were featured speakers at the subsequent rally in front of 30,000 people, where they called out banks for financing oil exploitation in their territories. See Guardian coverage here.
- Indigenous Amazonian Women Defenders meeting with Deb Haaland, Secretary of the Department of Interior of the United States of America.
- Amazon defenders featured in VOICES for the EARTH projection on SEC Armadillo building at COP26, including Chief Raoni, Sonia Guajajara, Alessandra Munduruku, and Helena Gualinga.
- Amazonia for Life: Protect 80% by 2025 Human Banner in solidarity with Amazonian Indigenous peoples and organizations prior to the March for Climate Justice.
- March and Rally for Climate Justice with over 100,000 people through the rainy Glasgow streets. Indigenous delegations from around the world led the march.
- Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women action inside and outside COP26 on Gender Day. Nina Gualinga (Kichwa), Mireya Gualinga (Kichwa), and Nemo Andy (Waorani) join in solidarity. Coverage here. Instagram livestream speeches here and here.
- Global Assembly on the Amazon and Climate Crisis
- Amazonian Indigenous women from Brazil, Peru, and Ecuador met and delivered demands to Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and UN Human Rights Commissioner and Chair of The Elders.
- Indigenous-led action on JPMorgan Chase headquarters in Glasgow in coordination with Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), Indigenous Climate Action (ICA), among other allies. Indigenous leaders from across the Americas impacted by fossil fuel projects financed by Chase spoke out about the urgent need for the bank to stop financing fossil fuels and #DefundClimateChaos. Speakers included Nemo Andy Guiquita (CONFENIAE), Maricela Gualinga (Vice-President, Kichwa Sarayaku), and Mireya Gualinga (Kichwa Sarayaku youth representative). Local interview with Maricela Gualinga here. Full instagram livestream found here.
- Amazon Watch and AMA (Global Amazon Assembly) side-event inside COP 26 entitled, “To stop climate collapse, we need to save the Amazon,” featuring Nemo Andy Guiquita (Waorani and Women’s Director of CONFENIAE), Pablo Solon (AMA and Fundacion Solon), Luis Arnoldo Campos (FOSPA-Pan Amazon Social Forum). Watch the event here.
- Leila Salazar-López, Amazon Watch Executive Director, live on Sky News
The key purpose of COP26 was to finalize Article 6, an article in the Paris Climate Agreement which promotes market-based mechanisms, including carbon offsets, trading and capture to allow governments and corporations to continue polluting without reducing emissions. Article 6 is moving forward without a grievance mechanism, threatening Indigenous rights, territories, and climate justice. Due to the tireless work of Indigenous peoples, including allies at NDN Collective and Indigenous Climate Action, Indigenous and human rights were integrated into Article 6, but this is not legally binding.
As Jade Begay, Climate Justice Campaign Director of NDN Collective and Amazon Watch Board Member says, “What these outcomes signal to me, especially for those of us working within the U.S., is that we have a great deal of work to do to implement racial equity throughout our all of government climate approach. As we look towards COP27, the U.S. Special Envoy on Climate and U.S. federal agencies must work to integrate and understand Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), as this is a pathway to get climate policy right both back at home and abroad. What’s more is that if FPIC is not implemented in climate policy we will continue to fail in achieving real climate justice.”
While Indigenous solutions were clearly present at COP26, the Glasgow agreement failed to address the climate emergency. While nearly $20 billion was pledged to protect forests by 2030, that’s too late for the Amazon, which faces a catastrophic tipping point. We must protect 80% of the rainforest by 2025. This means implementation of the Amazon for Life Declaration, which calls for an immediate moratorium on deforestation and fossil fuel expansion, direct forest finance to Indigenous and forest communities on the front lines of protection, and the exclusion of forest-carbon offsets.
The COP26 climate agreement is also full of greenwashing. It includes no near-term commitments for any action on fossil fuels or forest protection. In fact, JPMorgan and UBS, both members of the Global Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), are some of the worst financiers of oil and gas in the Amazon rainforest. It appears that this net-zero pledge is simply another hollow corporate commitment like those that over 700 civil society groups across the world, including Amazon Watch, condemned in the lead-up to COP26.
In sum, all the pledges, commitments, and agreements made in Glasgow are not enough to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. They actually put the world on track for 2.4 degrees of warming according to Carbon Action Tracker. They continue to allow deforestation and extraction, exacerbating the Amazon tipping point and attacks on Indigenous and forest guardians. We will not give up! We will continue to unite, organize and work in solidarity with Indigenous peoples and allies to protect and defend the Amazon and ensure climate justice for all.
“When you look [back on] this COP, what you see is that it’s the same companies and corporations responsible for climate change that violate Indigenous rights and territories. It’s the same governments that persecute and incarcerate Indigenous people in their countries that were negotiating. They’re the ones that have decision-making power. But the real climate movement is out there with those frontline communities where people are literally putting their bodies on the line to protect biodiversity, to keep fossil fuels in the ground, to protect forests and water,” said Nina Gualinga to Atmos. Nina is a Kichwa Indigenous Woman Defender from Sarayaku and Women Defenders Ambassador with Amazon Watch.
More Media Highlights
“A Continuation of Colonialism”: Indigenous activists say their voices are missing at COP26 – The Guardian
Nina Gualinga: “Indigenous Voices Are Still Not Heard” – Atmos
Brazil indigenous people tell COP26: you need us to solve climate crisis – Reuters
There Is No Reason to Trust Brazil’s Climate, Deforestation Pledges – Huffington Post
“We Are Not Responsible”: Youth Climate Activists Rally in Glasgow to Demand World Leaders Act Now – Democracy Now!
Indigenous Amazonian Leader: We Must End Fossil Fuel Extraction to Protect the “Lungs of the Earth” – Democracy Now!
