As delegates from around the world gather in Baku, Azerbaijan, for the United Nations’ 29th annual climate summit, also known as COP29, one of the most contentious debates centers on carbon trading—a mechanism touted as the next big “climate fix” that allows countries and corporations to offset their emissions by investing in carbon-reducing projects elsewhere. According to many Indigenous leaders participating at the the so-called “finance COP,” carbon trading is a path fraught with risks, especially regarding the rights and sovereignty of Indigenous peoples who have cared for and protected the lands used in these trades since time immemorial.
With Indigenous peoples’ lands often targeted for these carbon-offset projects, many worry that carbon markets could lead to further rights violations and land grabs under the guise of climate solutions, without any grievance processes or rights safeguards. “Indigenous Peoples have been raising alarms about the dangers of carbon trading and its role in paving the way for international mechanisms that risk the lives, lands, waters and rights of Indigenous Peoples for years. States are now trying to push carbon trading articles through without the necessary safeguards, transparency, accountability and respect for Indigenous rights. Once again, the economic interests of the states outweigh the high integrity processes that require for an equitable and just future where rights are not only recognized but protected and celebrated,” said Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, executive director of Indigenous Climate Action (Canada).
Tom Goldtooth, executive director of the Indigenous Environmental Network, shared similar concerns. “Over 20 years of carbon markets have resulted in Indigenous Peoples’ rights violations, land grabbing and disproportionate impacts,” he stated.
At the heart of the COP29 carbon trading debate is Article 6 of COP21’s Paris Agreement, which sets the framework for international cooperation through carbon markets. Article 6 allows countries to buy and sell “internationally transferred mitigation outcomes,” effectively creating a global carbon market that is estimated to generate north of $1 trillion per year once launched. And the global north has much to gain by pushing privatized market approaches, rather than the use of government funding, to finance these carbon trading projects.
Indeed, this year’s COP has seen a growing divide between the global north, which champions carbon markets, and the global south, which needs stable, predictable climate finance separate from tumultuous economic trends, to adapt to climate impacts. While carbon markets might create profit for wealthier countries, they don’t guarantee the level of funding that Indigenous peoples and global south countries need to adapt.
“It’s like developing countries are asking for an ambulance, but developed countries are offering roller skates and calling it help,” explained Ghazali Ohorella, the lead Indigenous Peoples Caucus negotiator for Article 6. At a recent Article 6 Indigenous Peoples Caucus working group meeting, Ohorella put it plainly: “By promoting carbon markets as a way to ‘save the planet,’ developed countries are sidelining public finance in favor of private investments, framing it as innovation while limiting their own obligations. This lets them off the hook for providing predictable, equitable funding, leaving Indigenous Peoples and the Global South to shoulder the burden of unstable market-driven solutions.”
More specifically, COP29’s focus on carbon trading threatens to overshadow the urgent need for a new collective quantified goal on climate finance, which would ensure that nations and Indigenous peoples most impacted by climate change have access to adequate funding, primarily from the countries that have contributed to climate change the most in the global north.
One of the other core demands from Indigenous representatives at COP29 is that all carbon market policies respect the principle of free, prior, and informed consent, enshrined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. “Indigenous Peoples are facing harm from carbon capture and storage projects throughout their territories, my Nation is one of them, in the Alberta tar sands. Free, prior, and informed consent is crucial in these cases, as it ensures that Indigenous Peoples have the right to make decisions about projects that impact their lands, resources and ways of life,” said Crystal Lameman, government relations advisor and treaty coordinator for the Beaver Lake Cree Nation in Canada and a representative of the International Indian Treaty Council. “When these rights are not respected, it leads to further displacement and loss of access to land and resources vital for traditional practices like hunting and gathering, which are integral to the very identity and survival of Indigenous Peoples.”
Indigenous leaders at COP29 are meeting with country delegations, urging that FPIC cannot be treated as a “box to check” after a project is approved but must be secured before any cooperative approaches are authorized. They are also calling for an internationally standardized, mandatory process for carbon project approvals, rather than a country-by-country approach, ensuring transparency and protecting Indigenous rights no matter what country a project is located in.
An additional concern is the broad definition of “removals” in carbon markets, which could allow risky and understudied technologies like geoengineering to be classified as carbon offsets without clear safeguards. “Carbon market schemes are just another attempt to monetize nature, perpetuating false solutions that capitalize off the exploitation and/or theft of Indigenous lands and territories under the guise of carbon sequestration or geoengineering…Study after study has shown the failure of carbon sequestration projects, while this past year demonstrated that even natural carbon sinks are unable to keep up with the rate of emissions. Whenever countries rush decisions based on market structures and analyses, human rights and Indigenous rights are violated, the planet continues to be exploited, and we get further away from meaningful climate action,” stated Janene Yazzie, director of policy and advocacy at NDN Collective. According to an anonymous member of COP29’s Indigenous Peoples Caucus, also known as the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change, the caucus intends to include language in its opening statement at this year’s climate summit on the harms of rushing such new technologies into the carbon trading markets.
Over the next two weeks, Indigenous delegates to COP29 will continue to meet with representatives of governments around the world, advocating as collective rights-holders and not passive subjects of external carbon credit projects. Given the life and death stakes for the health, safety, dignity and longevity of their ancient nations, they are not opposed to climate action, but they are demanding a reasonable, rights-based approach to carbon markets to help ensure that their future generations thrive on their cherished homelands.
