Climate change, indigenous rights, and arctic impacts intersect at U.N. climate conference

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) — While the steamy rainforests of Brazil are far from Alaska’s arctic, the challenges of climate change discussed at the U.N. climate conference brought the two closer together.

The Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change — or COP — is one of the largest gatherings of people, organizations and governments, working together to tackle climate change. This November, the 30th of such conferences was held in Belém, Brazil.

“At this COP, there’s been a few very important issues, including discussions about how to manage carbon markets, discussions about how to ensure that those goals that were set at previous crops would actually be fulfilled, but also which principles that should follow in their fulfillment,” said Sara Olsvig, chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) while attending the conference.

Indigenous rights take center stage at COP30

COP30 was often billed as the “indigenous people’s COP,” expected to tackle issues such as deforestation in the Amazon and indigenous people’s rights. So as chair of the ICC, Olsvig attended COP30 on behalf of 180,000 Inuit across Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Russia.

Olsvig herself is from Greenland, but said issues of climate change connect indigenous people across the world.

“What we do in the Arctic affects the rest of the world, and what happens in the rest of the world affects us,” Olsvig said.

While at COP30, Olsvig said she and other Inuit representatives worked with other indigenous groups from around the world to address issues affecting all of them.

“For example, mining for gold here in the Amazon is one of the biggest emitters of mercury pollution,” Olsvig said. “And as we know, as Inuit, we go hunting, we go fishing, we eat the foods from our waters and mercury especially is transported through the currents of the waters and through weather systems into the Arctic. So we know that we are connected with what is going on around in the world.”

One of the significant outcomes of COP30 was agreement on the “just transition work programme,” Olsvig said. The decision signifies an international commitment to a transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. The agreement included what Olsvig said was a historic clause committing to the “informed consent of Indigenous Peoples” in that transition. That means clean energy resource development requires prior consent from indigenous people if it takes place on their land.

The agreement is binding for parties committed to the Paris Climate Agreement, which President Trump is pulling the U.S. out of. Olsvig said the agreement is a big step, but one which requires careful implementation.

“Well, as we’ve seen around the world, unfortunately, the extractive industries do bear with them a very terrible track record of human rights violations and the violations of the rights of Indigenous peoples,” Olsvig said.

COP30 impacts on Alaska

While no members of the Trump Administration attended, there was a handful of U.S. governors, mayors and other U.S. officials in attendance. Alaska governor Mike Dunleavy did not attend, nor did Alaska’s congressional delegation.

However, the ICC represents Alaskan Inuit and has representatives in the state. Anchorage resident Jackie Qataliña Schaeffer works as a Knowledge Holder for ICC and has attended COP in the past. Schaeffer was unable to attend this year due to a scheduling conflict but helped with some of ICC’s preparation for the conference, representing the Inuit values that Schaeffer said are core to ICC’s mission.

“When I represent Alaska or our tribes in that space, I really hold true to those values,” Schaeffer said. “I think in the international space, there are not enough people who are impacted or have the local knowledge to help with the decision making. So, it’s important that we have people who are there to create the policies and the legislation that really affects the people at home.”

Just over a month ago, Alaska’s southwestern region was hit by a devastating series of storms, including Typhoon Halong. Olsvig said those storms were on her mind at COP30.

“We’ve been following very closely from Greenland, from Kalaallit Nunaat, the devastating events in Western Alaska this fall,” Olsvig said. “With the relocation of 1,000 inhabitants, as we’ve been reading in the news, many of whom are our fellow Inuits, because of the typhoon and the flooding,”

“And we know that there’s a big, big risk from permafrost fall in the future for these kinds of events to continue.”

Schaeffer is originally from Kotzebue, which saw some damage from the storms this last October. Over time, the effects of climate change are apparent in her hometown, Schaeffer said, from the seawall that was not there in her childhood years, to the impacts on cultural practices and subsistence living.

<16:12> “We have a fish camp that’s about 40 miles north of Kotzebue, and that fish camp now is totally eroding into Hʉlghaatno, which is, we call it Kobuk Creek,” Schaeffer said. “ “That’s devastating because when you have infrastructure that, you know, you grew up there, you did all your harvesting and your fishing and your camping there.

“I mean, all your cultural practices and traditions that were passed on, and they’re washing away, and that is devastating to our culture and to our family.”

What COP30 means moving forward

While Olsvig and Schaeffer said significant steps were taken at COP30, both said there is still much further to go. Olsvig said that over the course of the conference, language in many of the documents changed significantly, such as the elimination of an agreement for participating states to phase out fossil fuels, and safeguards of human rights in mining and the rush to access critical minerals — something she said was there earlier in the week.

“It feels like the world is collectively wearing blinders,” Olsvig said. “Climate change is adversely affecting Inuit. Coastal erosion and extreme weather events are forcing communities to relocate. Fifty percent of infrastructure across our homelands will be at risk by 2050 due to permafrost thaw, and we are losing access to hunting and fishing as sea ice decreases.”

Still, Olsvig said the agreement on informed consent and the self-determination of indigenous peoples is a “significant stand-alone operative” protecting the rights of indigenous people the world round, while looking to the work ahead.

“I am leaving Belém with a sense of urgency that we must re-establish strong global climate multilateralism,” Olsvig said. “One that includes indigenous peoples at the table.”

The thousands who descended on Brazil for COP30 have since left, but the issues they endeavored to solve persist, including those which affect Alaska, and the world.

“If you consider the Arctic, the Yedoma permafrost, the cooling system of the planet, and it’s breaking down, we have a problem,” Schaeffer said. “And it’s a global problem, and so I think, one, we need informed consent so that we have the whole picture, because the more information we have, the better the decisions and the outcomes are.”

Balance is crucial, Schaeffer said, while hope persists.

“I think that the common thread is hope,” Schaeffer said. “I think, especially indigenous people who still practice their cultures. They bring hope to the table because they still interact with nature in such a harmonious way that that itself is hope. And the storytelling and the knowledge sharing, again — that’s invaluable.”

“It leads to discussions that lead to outcomes, and hopefully those outcomes will be implemented.”

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