Indigenous Land Management: The Missing Piece in Climate Commitments — COP30
- Kate Potvin
- Nov 21
- 6 min read
Updated: Dec 1
By Kate Potvin
The 30th Conference of the Parties (COP30), launched by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is well underway in Belêm, Brazil — the heart of the Amazon — where global leaders are actively negotiating their commitments under the Paris Agreement.
Every five years, countries are expected to submit nationally determined contributions (NDCs) that define their climate goals, strategies, and financing, and reflect the highest possible ambition levels. The third round of NDCs was due this year, but the current picture is alarming: Inadequate commitments have put the planet on track for 2.6° C of warming, and fossil fuel emissions have reached an all-time high.
The NDCs have fallen critically short in three key areas:
Emission targets fall short: Current commitments and pledges are worsening and failing to prevent global temperatures from exceeding pre-industrial temperatures by the end of the century.
Broken Climate Finance Promises: Wealthy nations have failed to deliver on their legal obligations to provide adequate and accessible climate finance to developing countries—the nations least responsible for emissions but most vulnerable to climate impacts.
No Fossil Fuel Phase-Out Plans: Despite fossil fuel emissions reaching all-time highs, NDCs contain no binding commitments or timelines to phase out coal, oil, and gas production.
Translating Recognition into Action: Despite acknowledging the role of local communities, current NDCs lack substantive integration of those most affected, and most effective, at climate action into national policy.
The failure is particularly impactful on IPs, whose stakes for meaningful inclusion could not be higher. IPs protect 80% of Earth’s biodiversity and approximately 40% of protected areas and ecologically intact landscapes. Yet, they receive less than 1% of international climate finance or lack an allocated mechanism to receive these funds.
This year’s COP is being dubbed “the Indigenous peoples COP,” as there is a critical opportunity for governments to recognise Indigenous land management as essential climate infrastructure, not merely a peripheral conservation effort.
There is a critical opportunity [at COP30] for governments to recognise Indigenous land management as essential climate infrastructure, not merely a peripheral conservation effort.
The Indigenous Inclusion Crisis
Indigenous Peoples hold inherent rights to their ancestral lands; rights enshrined in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and protected under international law. These rights include self-determination, territorial sovereignty, and the authority to manage their lands according to traditional governance systems.
Recognising and upholding these rights is not a favour or a policy choice; it is a legal and moral obligation. When these rights are exercised and protected, Indigenous Peoples’ traditional knowledge, governance systems, and land management practices become powerful tools in addressing climate change.
IPs have long been protectors of the world’s biodiversity and play a critical role in global climate mitigation, safeguarding a majority of the world’s remaining biodiversity while representing just 6.2% of the global population. They traditionally own, manage, use or occupy at least a quarter of the world’s land — land that stores significant amounts of carbon, is vital in the fight against climate change, and is their inherent right.
Research shows that Indigenous and community-managed forests with secure land rights exhibit lower deforestation rates and store substantial amounts of carbon. In the Amazon, scientists warn that it is approaching an irreversible tipping point where it could shift from a carbon sink to a carbon source. Areas stewarded by IPs and local communities store away 340 million metric tons of carbon annually. Meanwhile, other regions not under this protection have become sources of GHG emissions.
Across South America, Afro-descendent peoples protect forests and high-carbon-density lands. Yet in Brazil, 63.4 million hectares of the Amazon remain unprotected. Expanding Indigenous land recognition and government protection could reduce deforestation by up to 20% and cut carbon emissions by 26% by 2030.
Despite overwhelming evidence, NDCs submitted for COP30 highlight the importance of these communities in climate finance strategies but offer no details on their delivery. While governments debate carbon markets and mechanisms, the very people who have successfully protected forests for millennia remain underrepresented, unheard and resource-deprived.
Today, the question facing delegates is not whether Indigenous land rights work, but whether governments will finally match rhetoric with action.
NDC 3.0 Failures
The numbers reveal a crisis of ambition under the pretence of progress; of the 195 parties with NDCs, only 90, just 46%, include references related to IPs in their pledges.
While recognition of Indigenous participation and knowledge is growing, implementation is lacking. Across the NDCs, vague language referring to “consulting” Indigenous communities without granting decision-making authority or land tenure reveals the failure of the NDCs to meaningfully involve, include, and represent the interests of IPs.
There is also a lack of enforceable Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC), a principle protected by international human rights standards that requires obtaining consent from IPs for activities on their land. Only five parties refer to the right of Indigenous Peoples, while six explicitly mention FPIC in the context of climate change.
Increased discussion of IPs has not led to improved, tangible commitments. The continued lack of inclusion for Indigenous jurisdiction, governance systems and land rights is a significant shortcoming, deliberately excluding the effectiveness of Indigenous land management as a mode of climate action. When NDCs do mention Indigenous Peoples, they often disregard the root causes of vulnerability, reinforcing colonial patterns, dispossession and marginalisation.
The reality of NDCs 3.0:
Among these countries’ NDC 3.0s (Australia, Canada, Japan, UK, Norway, New Zealand, Iceland, Switzerland, Brazil and Russia), there is a weak at best attempt to address Indigenous rights.
Not a single wealthy nation explicitly commits to upholding FPIC or translating recognition into concrete, measurable, and rights-based commitments.
The need to acknowledge IPs as agents of change at this year’s COP is urgent. Countries are presenting their updated national action plans, a rare window of opportunity to embed evidence-based Indigenous-led conservation into national climate strategies.
Despite the magnitude of this ‘Indigenous Peoples COP, this moment feels eclipsed by the pervasive attendance of fossil fuel lobbyists and interests. The disconnect was on display when Indigenous protestors from the Munduruku people, whose territory faces threats from illegal mining operations and major infrastructure projects, attempted to deliver their concerns to Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Instead, they were redirected to COP President André Corrêa do Lago, a symbolic reminder that even at the ‘Indigenous Peoples COP’, Indigenous voices remain sidelined.
A Rights-Based Alternative to NDCs
In response to countries and NDC 3.0 failing to recognise territorial rights, and to the lack of mechanisms for community participation or access to direct climate finance, the Rights and Resources Initiative has developed a rights-based NDC model to propose a new structure.
The model focuses on measurable outcomes, aligns with the Paris Agreement, and centres the leadership, knowledge, and priorities of Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant Peoples, and local communities.
The model requires:
Mandatory FPIC with legal enforcement mechanisms
Recognition and protection of legal ownership and control over ancestral lands
Knowledge integration and full participation
Direct access to climate finance
Safeguards and risk mitigation
Acknowledge gender and ensure both elders and youth have a voice in the decision
The cost of continued exclusion is catastrophic, undermining climate goals, perpetuating historical injustice and ignoring proven solutions. The world cannot afford performative recognition while excluding those who protect 80% of the world’s biodiversity.
At Shared Planet, we believe in recognising Indigenous governance as climate governance, making FPIC a standard practice — not simply an aspiration — and implementing concrete, measurable rights-based commitments in NDCs with accountability mechanisms
Megan Simpson and Yiğit Gürpınar, co-leads of Shared Planet’s Climate and Nature Governance practice area, emphasise that rights-based approaches are not simply an effective climate solution, they are morally necessary.
Rights-based approaches are not simply an effective climate solution, they are morally necessary.
Shared Planet is proud to help amplify the voices of rights-holders whose leadership has been systematically excluded from the spaces where decisions about their lands are made. When communities control their territories, forests thrive, carbon stays locked in the ground and climate goals become achievable.
This year at COP30, we are closely watching for:
Direct finance commitments to fair, accessible, and quality public climate finance
NDCs explicitly acknowledge and respect IPs’ rights to land tenure agreements and the recognition of IPs’ jurisdiction
NDCs referencing rights frameworks such as the FPIC, and enforcing clear procedures and legal safeguards