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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, July 10, 2021
Contacts: Jennifer Falcon, 218-760-9958, jennifer@ienearth.org
IPCC Indigenous Knowledge and Leadership is the Key to Mitigating Climate Change
Yesterday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change, released its most comprehensive assessment on the state of the climate crisis since 2013. In the report, the IPCC states what Black, Indigenous and people of the global majority already know because we are suffering -- the impacts of climate change are already severe and widespread and are rapidly worsening. We cannot wait for drastic action that includes a fast and just transition centered in Indigenous knowledge away from fossil fuels.
The IPCC physical science report provides undeniable proof of faster rates of global warming than earlier predictions indicated, while the United Nations continues to ignore their own scientists and push false solutions like the carbon markets in Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. These false solutions do not address our crisis at its root and continue land grabs from Indigenous Peoples in the global south.
Earth’s ecosystems are declining globally at unprecedented rates with one exception-- three-quarters of the land-based environment and about 66% of the marine environment has been significantly altered by human actions. On average these trends have been less severe or avoided in areas held or managed by Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities.
In the leadup to the next United Nations climate conference in November, we must resist false solutions in Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. Article 6 is the UN-backed global carbon pricing system that incentivizes more fossil fuel extraction. Supporting false solutions in Article 6 ignores the UN’s own IPCC.
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Established in 1990, The Indigenous Environmental Network is an international environmental justice nonprofit that works with tribal grassroots organizations to build the capacity of Indigenous communities. I EN’s activities include empowering Indigenous communities and tribal governments to develop mechanisms to protect our sacred sites, land, water, air, natural resources, the health of both our people and all living things, and to build economically sustainable communities.
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