COP28 Ocean Takeaways: The Climate Crisis is a Values Crisis
Written by Bodhi Patil, Founder of InnerLight and Futureswell team member
The Indigenous Wisdom Keepers Delegation is an ancestrally rooted community of 13 traditional knowledge keepers from 6 continents dedicated to restoring planetary wellbeing. Despite forced erasure through colonialism, racism, and violence alongside a myriad of socio-economic-ecological threats the planet faces, the Wisdom Keepers are bringing back ancient wisdom rooted in Indigenous practices to enact contemporary solutions. Being holistic by nature, this group of new-age climate avengers embraces a mission to transcend the turbulent chaos of the Anthropocene and guide the world forward to bring back a pre-colonial equilibrium with biodiversity rooted in ancient ways of living.
While some argue that Indigenous practices may not be scalable to address the climate crisis, it's essential to consider their unique localized benefits. Internal Indigenous power struggles and tribal conflicts should not be used to dismiss the potential benefits of Indigenous knowledge systems and practices. A diverse range of solutions will be needed to address the complex challenges of the climate, biodiversity, and pollution crisis we are up against. This is a team effort that involves all of humanity, especially those of us who are privileged and capable of taking radical transformative actions.
"Rather than imposing ourselves as arbitrary leaders, we stand humbly as individuals in the community, nurtured by the wisdom passed down through our diverse Indigenous traditions, attuned to the needs of our communities, and untainted by the will of nongovernmental organizations. (Wisdom Keepers)" This simple yet profound statement sums up our authenticity in pushing forward a climate justice and Indigenous Rights agenda for the collective well-being of humanity.
Fighting for Indigenous Rights means recognizing the rights of Nature within multilateral United Nations Frameworks because Indigenous Peoples (IP) globally steward biodiversity by protecting healthy ecosystems, having a solid connection to our shared oceanic water heritage, and keeping cultural practices alive despite immense resistance.
This blog will delve into my reflections from the recent United Nations Conference of Parties (COP28) and offer insight into ocean-climate breakthroughs, planetary self-identity and differences in the framing of 'nature.' To do this, we will explore the inherent values required to build a regenerative and environmentally healthy future for all.
Guiding Humanity towards Reciprocal Relationships with Nature
The current relationship between industrialized humanity and the environment is perpetuating extractive systems that drive the climate crisis and a mass extinction event of tremendous biodiversity loss on Earth. Oceanic warming, acidification, and resulting sea-level rise are the highest in millions of years. As a result, coral reefs could be the first full-scale ecosystems to go extinct in the fossil fuel era. Coral reefs are home to 25% of marine biodiversity and provide livelihoods to millions in climate-vulnerable low-lying island nations (UNEP). Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and stopping the flow of plastic pollution and chemical leachate are critical to coral survival in unfavorable conditions.
Native Polynesian Peoples have developed locally-managed Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) called "rahuis" to extend the lifeline of coral reefs and combat pollution from upstream sources. This place-based knowledge now informs large-scale MPAs, global treaties, financial mechanisms for coral stewardship like the coral breakthrough, and international climate negotiation texts including the ocean-climate dialogues. Despite encompassing only 5% of the global population and 15% of the world's poor, Indigenous Communities steward 80% of all Biodiversity (Statista).
We need to collectively transform our relationship with Nature to stop the extinction of all species, including our own. During COP28, the Wisdom Keepers became the Wisdom Weavers by using the connectivity of water and resistance against fossil fuels to explain the strong interconnection between all living and nonliving beings to decision-makers and world leaders. The policy advocacy, direct interventions, and roundtable discussions we hosted had an immeasurable effect on countless hearts, minds, and capitalist power brokers. IP's tireless work profoundly affects biodiversity protection, interspecies justice, and marine conservation, helping to value existing biodiversity for cultural provisions and reducing extinction rates. Both Kolbert and the Wisdom Keepers argue that we must transcend extractive value systems and re-discover regenerative values to stop the Sixth Mass Extinction and accelerate the just transition to a world free of fossil fuels. This realignment of values is in conjunction with the outcomes of COP28 that call for the "Beginning of the End" of the Fossil Fuel Era (UNFCCC).
2. Water is Life, so Flow like Water
Upholding Indigenous Rights, as stated by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), means respecting Indigenous lands, cultures, traditions, and systems of environmental governance along with many additional sovereign rights to protect IP ways of existing (UNDRIP). A strong proponent of transitioning away from destructive neo-colonial systems and towards climate-resilient holistic systems involves recognizing the inherent rights of Nature. The Māori people of Aotearoa, New Zealand, have successfully led the charge to grant rivers legal personhood. Now, Māori and many IPs are doing the same for the rights of whales, the ocean as a living entity, and the rights of Nature as a whole under international policy frameworks and legally binding justice systems. Although extremely heterogeneous, many Indigenous cultures share a common sentiment about the importance of Nature that has been passed down for generations: Water is life or Mní Wičóni (the resounding message from Standing Rock).
The Wisdom Keepers describe water as a living being delivering ever-flowing power, purpose, and knowledge. Different Indigenous cultures worldwide recognize water beyond being a necessary resource and instead as a living vessel bringing life in all forms. This is highly resonant for many reasons:
Water has provided medicine and life with every sip we take.
The sounds of the ocean and water have helped to heal deep wounds from colonialism.
The most abundant source of water on the planet - the ocean - connects us through voyaging canoe cultures and provides a primary source of protein for billions.
Water flows through our cells (making up most of our human bodies) and covers most of the planet.
Wisdom-keeping cultures share a crucial message through many unique and profound stories: Water is the origin of all life forms, and the ocean keeps us alive.
3. Ending the Fossil Fuel Era, Shifting towards a Regenerative Future
Throughout my experiences at COP28, it is clear that the climate crisis is a values crisis. Fossil fuel combustion is mixing up many different timescales that have altered the trajectory of humanity in irreversible ways. The idea of burning millions of years of biological material - in an instant - is a power imbalance that has led to current climate catastrophes and war. Human abuse of the biological time-space reality has generated a ruined and scorched landscape. However, the pervasive effects of fossil fuels extraction and the characterization of oil bubbling up from the ground, emerging from the depths of the Earth, are radically transformed by a more powerful force. The power of Nature in the form of a river, ocean, and blue carbon ecosystems can bring back hope and stability by rejuvenating life in a post-apocalyptic world. Humanity can chart a better path forward by following the pristine path of water, a vessel for hope and regeneration.
Protecting sacred water sources - rivers, streams, lakes, waterfalls, oceans, etc. - is critical to upholding Indigenous Rights. An Indigenous-led resurgence for planetary well being includes bringing back ancient environmental wisdom and community-led governance structures into a hyper-modernized world. Wisdom Keepers are actively helping to restore the health of humanity and Mother Earth by helping to lead the resurgence and educate countless people in the process. Despite lining through the Sixth Mass Extinction, we will persevere through the continuous fires and floods, rising like a phoenix from the ashes of destruction.
4. Paddling Forwards.
Framing Nature as an essential piece of Indigenous identity and the collective genetic composition of the human race has been paramount to my understanding of environmental stewardship. Nature is a sacred wild-scape that lives within our hearts and minds. We are nature. Nature also forms a home for biodiversity and the self-proclaimed top predator of the food chain - the human race - so putting Nature first is paramount to our species' survival.
Before and throughout COP28, the Indigenous Peoples Caucus (IPC) tirelessly represented the 476 million Indigenous people worldwide across 90 countries (Amnesty). With boundless energy, charisma, and ferocity, the IPC relentlessly ensured that IP informed the outcomes of the final text on Loss and Damage, the Global Stocktake, and Article 6, calling for a total phase-out of fossil fuels. Although the most robust language forcing an immediate just transition was not adopted, over 200 countries agreed to reduce global consumption and transition away from fossil fuels, signaling the slow death of the oil age. This is an incredible step forward for Mother Earth. However, we need to rapidly decarbonize the world and increase ambition and action if we are going to ensure the wellbeing of humanity for future generations.
This sacred identity that We are Nature, characterized by Indigenous Wisdom Keepers's stories from river communities in India to the holy Amazon headwaters to traditional nature doctors of Germany, clearly depicts how we have evolved from Nature and continue to shape it as an apex species. These culturally informed stories share similar values and have a resounding message of hope and possibility. By learning from centuries-old knowledge systems and healing broken relationships with Nature, we can move beyond plaguing the planet and paddle forward for climate justice together.
Bibliography:
*Nature is capitalized to recognized its’ inherent rights as per UN Rights of Nature report cited
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“COP28: Landmark Deal to ‘transition Away’ from Fossil Fuels Agreed – as It Happened.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 13 Dec. 2023, www.theguardian.com/environment/live/2023/dec/13/cop28-live-updates-news-agreement-outcomes-draft-text-fossil-fuels.
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