Stockholm, Sweden — With global temperatures continuing to break records and every global indicator of the health of the natural world showing decline, the need to quickly move away from fossil fuels and environmentally destructive practices has never been more apparent. But as has often been pointed out, how this ‘green transition’ is achieved matters.
Besides the self-evident benefits of a healthier, more liveable world, the green transition opens up huge economic and employment opportunities. It also has the potential to usher in a more just, more equitable, more peaceful world.
But without deliberate interventions to make sure that happens, the green transition could instead deepen injustice and division.
Indigenous Peoples and peasant communities have played little role in causing climate change or environmental breakdown–in fact, they are often innovative and effective stewards of the natural environment. Nevertheless, they are among the groups most vulnerable to these crises, as well as to the potential negative impacts of green projects.
A just, and successful green transition must see both the benefits and the burdens shared equitably across regions and communities–including among Indigenous and peasant communities.
The United Nations Biodiversity Conference, COP16, which started in Cali, Colombia, in October last year and finally closed on 27 February this year in Rome, produced some important steps in this direction.
Global frameworks and the green transition
The 2015 Paris Agreement and the 2022 Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework are the main frameworks setting the level of ambition and timelines for the green transition. The Paris Agreement calls for a 43-per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, while the Global Biodiversity Framework calls for halting and reversing biodiversity loss by the same date.
These commitments are driving change in many sectors. Two categories of commodities play key roles in current strategies to achieve these goals: ‘energy transition minerals’ used in clean technologies like solar panels, wind turbines and electric batteries–and biofuels.
Demand for both is expected to surge. This presents both opportunities and significant challenges in terms of equity, human rights, economic justice and environmental sustainability.
Unequal distribution of benefits and burdens
The benefits and burdens inherent in the green transition are not, for now, evenly distributed. Only 10 per cent of the $2 trillion in energy transition-related investments made in 2023 went to 150 developing countries that together represent a third of global GDP and are home to half of the world’s population.
Wealthier countries and households tend to gain more from green infrastructure, and green investment, while in contrast large-scale renewable energy projects may bring job losses, worsening energy insecurity and displacement to low-income communities.
The extraction of ETMs often exacerbates pre-existing vulnerabilities in surrounding communities and increases the likelihood of environmental conflicts, especially in low-income countries. More than half of the potential ETM reserves are located on or near the lands of Indigenous groups and peasant communities.
Likewise, biofuel production has significant implications for land use, ecology, food security and rural communities. Latin America, South East Asia, and North America are already major biofuel exporters and intend to increase their output.
Yet expansion of fuel crop production often takes place on land that belongs to or is used by Indigenous and peasant communities, even if this fact is not always recognized in official land use data.
Indigenous and peasant communities in the green transition
Indigenous Peoples make up 4-6 per cent of the world’s population and traditionally own, manage, use or occupy a quarter of the world’s land. Peasants (including some Indigenous communities) constitute approximately 40 per cent of the global population.
Their dependency on the land for their livelihoods, coupled with entrenched marginalization and–in the case of many Indigenous populations–deep spiritual and cultural ties to nature make them particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, biodiversity loss and environmental conflicts.
ETM mining and large-scale energy projects, including fuel crop plantations, frequently results in land grabs, forced evictions and other human rights violations, and environmental degradation, threatening their lives, livelihoods and food security. Around a third of the environmental defenders killed each year are Indigenous Peoples.
Because of issues like these, there are widespread calls for the technical aspects of the green transition to be implemented in ways that promote social equity, ecological justice and structural political change–a just transition.
However, interpretations of exactly what this means vary. For many Indigenous Peoples and peasant communities, a just transition entails shifting away from exploitative extractive models to prioritize sustainability and social equity, restore Indigenous governance and self-determination, and recognize cultural practices and land rights.
Progress and institutional recognition
COP16 made key steps towards institutionalizing Indigenous and local communities’ role in implementating the 2011 United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, and has been hailed by Camila Paz Romero, spokesperson for Indigenous Peoples at the conference, as ‘an unprecedented occasion in the history of multilateral environmental agreements’.
Landmark decisions at COP16 included adopting a work programme for provisions of the convention related to Indigenous Peoples and local communities and establishing a permanent ‘subsidiary body’ that will ‘enhance the engagement and participation of indigenous peoples and local communities in all Convention processes’.
The work programme prioritizes the conservation, restoration and sustainable use of biodiversity; full and effective participation; and a human rights-based approach.
Another major breakthrough was the provision that at least half of the resources collected in the new Cali Fund will go to the self-identified needs of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. This should enhance these communities’ ability to lead conservation and biodiversity restoration efforts.
The Cali Fund, which was officially launched on 25 February, is to consist of contributions from major companies making commercial use of digital sequence information on genetic resources.
Towards an inclusive and sustainable future
The agreements reached at COP16 are milestones worth celebrating. But they do not ensure a just and sustainable green transition for the world’s Indigenous Peoples and peasant communities. That requires recognizing and engaging with these communities as equal partners when it comes to decisions and actions that affect their lands and resources.
This is particularly important when their interests and ambitions are in competition with more powerful economic and geopolitical imperatives. The meaningful inclusion and participation of these groups should lead to more equitable policies.
In addition, states need to recognize legal land and property rights for Indigenous and peasant communities. They need to allow self-determination, and safeguard these communities against displacement and environmental harm. Ignoring these principles risks deepening socio-environmental and economic injustices and escalating conflicts–not to mention incurring substantial financial costs when, for example, suspending operations at a mine can cost millions of dollars a day.
Equitable resource distribution, democratic governance and local leadership are essential to avoid top-down approaches that have a tendency to marginalize local actors, especially Indigenous and peasant communities. In that regard it is imperative that companies are incentivized to contribute to the Cali Fund.
Giving Indigenous Peoples and peasant communities the resources to scale up locally led biodiversity conservation, restoration and resource-management initiatives could both strengthen their agency and help to ensure long-term ecological and social resilience.
Ultimately, treating Indigenous People and peasant communities as equal partners improves the chances of winning the fight against climate change, biodiversity loss and environmental injustice, with no-one left behind.
Caroline Delgado is a Senior Researcher and Director of the Food, Peace and Security Programme at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). She is lead author of the report Environmental and Climate Justice, and the Dynamics of Violence in Latin America.
IPS UN Bureau
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