Re-centring on the Land – Towards an Agenda for Indigenous-led Climate Policy

By Graeme Reed, Senior Advisor, Assembly of First Nations and Ph.D. Candidate, School of Environmental Design and Rural Development, University of Guelph

An iceberg floats in the water as birds fly overhead.

This blog post is based on our co-authored article, titled “Indigenizing Climate Policy in Canada: A Critical Examination of the Pan-Canadian Framework and the ZéN RoadMap,” published in Frontiers in Sustainable Cities (DOI: 10.3389/frsc.2021.644675). Authors include Graeme Reed (University of Guelph), Jen Gobby (Concordia), Rebecca Sinclair (Indigenous Climate Action), Rachel Ivey, and H. Damon Matthews (Concordia University).

Climate impacts are being felt today

Canada’s all-time heat record was shattered this past June, as Lytton, B.C. hit temperatures of 49.6 degrees Celsius: temperatures that the World Weather Attribution calculated to be virtually impossible without human-caused climate change.

Such temperatures are only going to become more common. Based on the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, global average temperatures are expected to hit 1.5°C in a little more than a decade, and 2°C by mid-century. In Canada, this warming is magnified, as it will occur at twice the global rate, with the Canadian Arctic warming at more than three times the global rate.

Considering this existential threat, governments – federal, territorial, provincial, and municipal – are increasingly releasing declarations, political pledges, and high-level meetings promising ambitious greenhouse gas reductions. There is little to suggest, however, that these efforts will reverse the failure of the last thirty years of climate mitigation, as global temperatures continue to rise. This is due, in part, to the oversimplification (and reduction) of the problem framed by one misguided question: “How do humans achieve a reduction in their emissions of greenhouse gases in the coming few decades?”

This one-dimensional approach is exclusively concerned with the symptoms of the climate crisis (i.e. emissions), rather than the root causes that drive the continued expansion of oil and gas development, despite global agreements such as the Paris Agreement. Instead, Indigenous scholars point to the interrelationship of colonialism, capitalism, and carbon and how it has shaped where they live, their socio-economic conditions, and how they exercise their relationships with Mother Earth. An analysis of this interrelationship is vital to understand the potential impact that climate change has on Indigenous Peoples and their government, rights, and knowledge systems.

Current climate policies and actions are not working for climate, nor for Indigenous Peoples

Our recent publication, Indigenizing Climate Policy in Canada: A Critical Examination of the Pan-Canadian Framework and the ZéN RoadMap, picks up on the recent momentum of decolonizing Canadian climate policy (such as the work led by Indigenous Climate Action). In it, we analyzed two settler-developed climate policies – building on ICA’s analysis of the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change (Pan-Canadian Framework), a federal government-led plan, and the Quebec ZéN (zero émissions nette, or net-zero emissions) Roadmap, a civil society-led plan in Quebec.

Through a combination of interviews with Indigenous experts, strategic partnerships with Indigenous-led organizations, and direct participation (or participant observation), we developed a critical policy analysis framework to determine whether these plans are: (a) in alignment or conflict with the governments' commitments to reconciliation and Nation to Nation relationships; (b) violating or respecting inherent, treaty, constitutional, and international Indigenous rights, and (c) centering or ignoring and erasing Indigenous perspectives, knowledge, and approaches to climate mitigation and adaptation.

Based on these questions, each plan conflicts with the aspirations of reconciliation, disrespected inherent, treaty, constitutional and international Indigenous rights, and largely ignored Indigenous perspectives, knowledge, and approaches to climate mitigation and adaptation. For example, The Pan-Canadian Framework promised “robust engagement” with Indigenous Peoples, but then refused their inclusion on the four working groups mandated to develop its pillars. Similarly, the ZéN Roadmap made a single reference to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UN Declaration), without any discussion on the right to self-determination, a right that provides Indigenous Peoples with the ability to “…freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development” (United Nations, 2007, p. 4).

These findings were unsurprising, as Indigenous Peoples have been advancing their own climate emergency declarations – recognizing that current climate policies are insufficient to address the root causes of the climate crisis. One such example is the Vuntut Gwitch'in First Nation (VGFN), in Old Crow, Yukon. Their declaration, entitled "Yeendoo Diinehdoo Ji' heezrit Nits'oo Ts' o' Nan He' aa," translates into "After Our Time, How Will the World Be?" This declared that “climate change constitutes a state of emergency for our lands, waters, animals, and peoples”. A state of emergency extended to the lands, waters, and animals draws a sharp contrast to the federally-declared emergency on June 17, one day before the approval of the Trans-Mountain Pipeline.

Indigenizing climate policy – re-centring on the land

In lieu of the failure and oversimplification of government climate policy, it is “...therefore simply not rational for Indigenous [P]eoples to rely on these global, national, and regional economic and political frameworks for climate justice and a sustainable future” (McGregor et al., 2020: p. 36). Instead, an Indigenous approach to these crises shifts the focus towards the land, understood as a “system of reciprocal relations and obligations [that] can teach us about living our lives in relation to one another and the natural world in non-dominating and non-exploitative terms.” (Coulthard, 2014: p. 13).

Drawing on interviews with ten Indigenous experts and our experience within the Indigenous climate movement we framed the broad principles of what an Indigenous approach to climate policy looked like. This enabled us to begin outlining an agenda that seeks to dismantle colonialism and capitalism in climate policy simultaneously:

1.    Climate policy must prioritize the land and emphasize the need to rebalance our relationships with Mother Earth.

2.    Indigenous Nations must be positioned as Nations that have an inherent right to self-determination.

3.    Indigenous Nations, Peoples, and representative organizations must be positioned as leaders with direct decision-making.

4.    Prioritize Indigenous knowledge systems and make space for the equal consideration of diverse knowledge systems.

5.    Reflect the diversity of Indigenous Nations

6.    Advance climate solutions that are interconnected, interdependent, and multi-dimensional to simultaneously advance decarbonization and decolonization.

Towards an agenda for Indigenous-led climate policy

We stress that this is only a starting point, and deep and meaningful engagement with Indigenous Peoples and Nations is required to breathe life into these components in a way that reflects each Nations’ individual history, culture, jurisdiction and legal system.

The linkages to the work of Conservation Through Reconciliation Partnership is clear, and aptly summarized by Eriel Deranger, Executive Director of Indigenous Climate Action: Real climate solutions are rooted in the return to the land.

These considerations are central to the development of Indigenous climate futures that not only support but also advance the flourishing of future generations and address the joint climate and biodiversity crises.