COP27: Why direct and local climate financing for Indigenous Peoples and local communities is urgent now

RECOFTC is co-hosting a side event at the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference of COP27. Titled “Why direct and local climate financing for Indigenous Peoples and local communities is urgent now,” the side event calls for driving climate financing directly to the primary stewards of the world’s remaining natural forests—Indigenous Peoples and local communities. The event will be live-streamed on Facebook. 

Direct climate financing is crucial to achieving the global climate change goal of limiting planetary warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Indigenous Peoples and local communities manage about 50 percent of the world’s land and more than one-fifth of forest carbon. but they receive only three percent of climate financing. Often they are left behind and struggling for land and resource rights. The 2021 Glasgow Climate Pact pledged US$1.7 billion in funding over the following four years for climate solutions that indigenous and local communities lead. However, their role as partners is yet to be clarified. 

Indigenous Peoples and local communities are at the forefront of humanity’s battle against the climate crisis. They hold the keys to both climate mitigation and adaptation and lead the way through nature-based solutions, protecting economies, societies and biodiversity.

This side event brings together RECOFTC partners from around the world. It calls for climate funds to be released directly to Indigenous Peoples and local communities allowing them to decide how best to use them.  

Join the event in person or follow the livestream on Facebook here. 

Facilitator

• Gustavo Sánchez, Executive Committee or the Mesoamerican Alliance for People and Forests

Speakers

• Mateo Estrada, Climate Change Advisor at Organización Nacional de los Pueblos Indígenas de la Amazonia Colombiana (OPIAC)
• Zoe Quiroz Cullen, Director, Climate & Nature Linkages at Fauna & Flora International
• Anna Lehmann, Peoples Forests Partnership Executive Committee member
• Regan Pairojmahakij, Senior Program Officer, RECOFTC
• Daniel Kobei, Ogiek Peoples Development Programme
• Oseas Barbarán, President of CONAP and Shipibo líder, Peru
• Bélen Páez, Executive Director at Amazon Sacred HeadWaters Initiative (ASHI)

COP27 will take place from 6 to 18 November 2022 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.