IITC Condemns Cop29’s Approval of Carbon Market As Direct Threat to Indigenous Rights

November 16, 2024 | Source: EnviroNews Nigeria

The International Indian Treaty Council (IITC) has condemned the November 11, 2024, decision by the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC COP29). States Parties voted unanimously, although some expressed concern, to approve long delayed and controversial carbon market rules contained in Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.

IITC joined with the other participants of International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC) which represents over 150 Indigenous Peoples from around the world attending COP29. The IIPFCC was unified in warning that these market-based mechanisms threaten Indigenous Peoples’ ecosystems and rights and enable continued pollution under the guise of “climate action”.

The IIPFCC’s opening statement, approved by consensus, and presented in the COP29 plenary on November 13, 2024, affirmed: “States have failed to take necessary action to phase out fossil fuels and implement a Just Transition to sustainable, non-carbon-based energy sources. At the same time, States are imposing false solutions enabled by Article 6, including geo-engineering, as well as extraction of so-called transition minerals, which do not reverse the climate crisis.”