Opening Statement COP30

We celebrate this first COP held in the Amazon. However, the lack of commitment and ambition from Parties has brought us to irreversible tipping points.

The Presidency calls it the COP of implementation, yet we are still experiencing colonization in our territories, with the expansion of fossil fuels including in the Amazon, mining for transition minerals, carbon trading, the agribusiness industry, nuclear energy and uranium extraction, geoengineering, and large-scale renewable energy infrastructure. This perpetuates conflict, displacement, destruction, and contamination of our sacred places, as well as persecution, criminalization, and murder of our relatives.

We demand that all climate action must be carried out with full respect for the rights of Indigenous Peoples, including our right to self-determination, Free, Prior and Inform Consent, and the protection of lands, waters, and territories.

We therefore make the following recommendations:

• The Just Transition Work Programme must uphold international human rights standards, including UNDRIP, explicitly protect Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation and Initial Contact, and redress the impacts of the extractive model.

• Ensure direct, flexible, and culturally appropriate access to all forms of climate finance, considering our own financial mechanisms.

• Ensure full and effective representation and participation in all decision-making processes, legal security of our territories, governance structures, and knowledge systems, especially in this COP, in NDCs and NAPs.

• Acknowledge Indigenous women, youth, and persons with disabilities’ contributions to climate action, and ensure their meaningful participation.

This is an Indigenous COP, and we are distinct right-holders and protectors of our knowledge. We need actionable results that include our wisdom and science. This is not optional; it is critical to our collective survival.

New Report: Indigenous Peoples and Traditional Knowledge in the Context of the UNFCCC

Read the Compilation

For decades, Indigenous Peoples have drawn upon knowledge and observations shared by their Elders and knowledge keepers and their reciprocal relationships with the natural world to raise awareness of the climate crisis. Because of their close relationship with their supportive ecosystems, Indigenous Peoples have acquired unique knowledge enabling them to understand, interpret, and react to the impacts of climate change. Their continued leadership has been essential to advancing rights-based frameworks during climate negotiations and is evident in documents such as the preamble of the Paris Agreement. 

The IPCC recognizes that drawing on meaningful participation and inclusive engagement processes of Indigenous Peoples, facilitates climate resilient development and allows locally appropriate and socially acceptable solutions. 

A rights-based approach — including commitments to uphold the minimum standards contained in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples — is essential to developing climate solutions grounded in equity, justice, and the self-determination of Indigenous Peoples.

In July 2025, the International Court of Justice reaffirmed the need to uphold Indigenous Peoples rights in the context of climate action. The InterAmerican Court of Human Rights also echoed this legal finding in its latest ruling, stressing the importance to respect, among others, Indigenous Peoples’ right to Free, Prior, Informed Consent.

Given their unique and critical role in climate negotiations, it is essential to understand Indigenous Peoples’ leadership with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and broader climate discourse. 

Indigenous Peoples and Traditional Knowledge in the Context of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change lists all of the references to Indigenous Peoples and traditional knowledge adopted by the UNFCCC bodies up to the COP30— serving as a useful tool for all actors involved in climate policies and climate actions, including governments, private corporations, and financial institutions. It complements previous compilations published by the International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change and the Center for International Environmental Law (in 2018, 2019 and 2021). 

Read the compilation.