#Climate Summit

[shamandrummer]

World Wilderness Congress Focuses on Indigenous Knowledge

"Humanity stands at a crossroads and must come together to realize dramatically different and supportive relationships with one another, the Earth, and all life on the planet, if we are to surmount cascading ecological and social crises now underway."

That was the message of Chief Arvol Looking Horse, the spiritual leader of the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota peoples, who on Sunday welcomed hundreds of attendees to the 12th World Wilderness Congress convening this week in the Black Hills, or He Sapa in the Lakota language. Though these gatherings, dedicated to assessing and often resetting global conservation work, date back to the 1970s, this is the first such congress being convened by a tribal authority. The agenda is dedicated heavily to centering Indigenous perspectives in the global struggle to protect wild lands and waters.

Indigenous peoples articulate alternative environmental perspectives and relationships to the natural world. Indigenous mythologies and oral traditions express a non-anthropocentric environmental ethic. Indigenous groups offer ancient tried-and-tested knowledge and wisdom based on their own locally developed practices of resource use. And, as Native peoples themselves have insisted for centuries, they often understand and exhibit a holistic, interconnected and interdependent relationship to particular landscapes and all of the life forms found there. Despite making up a tiny fraction of the world's population, Indigenous peoples hold ancestral rights to some 65 percent of the planet. This poignant fact conveys the enormous role that Native peoples play not only as environmental stewards, but as political actors on the global stage.

All over the world, Native peoples are engaged in battles with hostile corporations and governments that claim the right to set aside small reserves for Native people, and then to seize the rest of their traditional territory. They are confronting the destructive practices of industry and leading the charge against climate change while defending the rivers, forests and food systems that we all depend on. At the same time, they are blocking governments from eroding basic rights and freedoms and turning to the courts of the world to remedy 500 years of historical wrongs. Native peoples are putting their lives on the line and fighting back for political autonomy and land rights. And all the while, they are breathing new life into the biocultural heritage that has the potential to sustain the entire human race.

Looking Horse, the 19th Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe and Bundle, is as revered among the original people of this land as the Dalai Lama is by the people of Tibet or the Pope for Catholics around the world.

"We warned that some day you would not be able to control what you had created. And that day is here. Mother Earth is sick and has a fever," Looking Horse told the group assembled from nations, tribes, and communities across the world.

The chills of that "fever"--the accelerating shocks of climate destabilization caused by centuries of colonial extraction, fossil fuel combustion, and ecological destruction--rocked communities around the world in 2023, with 2024 continuing to break heat records. A "State of the Climate" report that drew on the work of nearly 600 scientists pointed to unprecedented levels of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere as the cause of Earth's overheating. Records were similarly broken for ocean heat, sea-ice loss, and sea-level rise. In all, industrially-driven global warming exposed nearly 80 percent of the people on the planet to at least 31 days of extreme heat, another study found. This level of heat was virtually impossible if not for the burning of fossil fuels and development-driven deforestation, Climate Central researchers have reminded us.

But organizers and attendees at WILD12 aren't there to haggle over carbon credits or debate the benefits and risks of carbon capture technologies and blue hydrogen, the substance of so many climate gatherings and debates. Instead, The WILD Foundation, through decades of international gatherings, aims to interrupt one driver of climate crisis that gets far less air time than carbon emissions: the global loss of the planet's wild spaces, which for millions of years have served as the planet's lungs and carbon sinks.

Yet even conservation spaces and agendas have offered a shallow understanding of problems and solutions, overlooking the deeper cultural--and thus colonial--roots of ecological collapse. What makes this year's congress so significant is its aim to reformulate the global conservation agenda not only by placing Indigenous leadership at the forefront of conservation action, but more foundationally, by centering Indigenous knowledge and worldviews in understandings of what Western cultures call wilderness.

In other words, the cultural roots of the collapse of our shared biosphere lies not in the make, model, or brand of the tools we use to clearcut forests or fuel plastics production. Rather, it lies in a fundamental misunderstanding that goes all the way to the bottom of Western thought: the hierarchical dualism that imagines the "human" as both separate from and superior to "nature".

Perhaps the most important aspect of Indigenous cosmology is the conception of creation as a living process resulting in a living universe in which a kinship exists between all things. Thus the Mother Earth is a living being, as are the Sun, Stars and the Moon. Hence the Creators are our family, our Grandparents or Parents, and all of their creations are children who are also our relations.

What needs to be understood and challenged, then, is the very basic conceptual groundings of Western culture itself, which gave birth to capitalism as a global economic system for extracting profit both from the bodies of people racialized and gendered as "others" and from land, treated as a dead thing or "resource" to extract from. For it is these philosophical and economic assumptions that--especially from an Indigenous perspective--facilitated colonization and enabled the genocides, slavery, and racial capitalism that followed.

The industrialized West is largely unaware of how Indigenous societies have functioned and the strengths they possess that industrial cultures have lacked. Our notions of progress are based on the idea that high tech means better, and that industrial cultures are somehow more advanced socially. The current state of our threatened environment demands that communication channels be opened for dialogue and engagement with Native environmental ethics. Native people are not only trying to protect water sources, clean up uranium tailings and mount opposition to fossil fuel extraction, they are also continuing their spiritual ways of seeking to celebrate and support all life by means of ceremonies and prayers.

[sevenoctober7]

The two photos were taken at the same time yesterday, the first of a girl from Gaza whose facial features were not visible from the flood of blood. The second of world leaders gathered in Dubai for the climate, including the head of the army who bombed this child, along with the rest of the leaders who blessed and supported his action.

الصورتان التقطتا في نفس الوقت البارحة

الأولى لطفلة من غزة لا تظهر معالم وجهها من فيض الدماء

الثانية لزعماء العالم المجتمعين في دبي من أجل المناخ وبينهم رئيس الجيش الذي قصف هذه الطفلة ومعه بقية الزعماء الذين باركوا فعله هذا ودعموه

[naipan]

“Jeder Artikel über die Weltklimakonferenz klingt wie "das ambitionierte Ziel bis 2032 einen Plan zu fassen, wie man eventuell aufhören könnte Welpen zu würgen, wurde von Interessenverband der Welpenwürgindustrie, der aus irgendwelchen Gründen mitreden darf, leider abgelehnt" (@elhotzo)

“Every article about the World Climate Conference sounds like “the ambitious goal of coming up with a plan by 2032 to possibly stop choking puppies has unfortunately been rejected by the puppy choking industry advocacy group, which for some reason is allowed to have a say” (@elhotzo) [google translated]

[geohoneylovers]

🌍 Highlights from Day 5 of COP28: Major strides in sustainable finance, innovative climate-resilient debt provisions & carbon credit initiatives, and global commitments to curb methane emissions. Explore more, click the link

[head-post]

UAE president to establish $30bn fund to bridge climate finance gap

Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates, which is hosting the COP28 climate summit, announced the establishment of a $30 billion fund for global climate solutions on Friday.

The fund, dubbed ALTÉRRA, will allocate $25 billion for climate strategies and $5 billion to attract $250 billion in investments by the end of the decade, according to the COP28 chairman’s statement.

In a statement, ALTÉRRA, in collaboration with global asset managers BlackRock, Brookfield and TPG, announced that it has committed $6.5 billion in climate change funds for global investments, including the Global South.

The programme “aims to steer private markets towards climate investment and focus on transforming emerging markets and developing economies, where traditional investment has been lacking due to the higher perceived risks across those geographies.”

Learn more HERE

[thealanwrightblog]

World leaders have gathered in Dubai this weekend to discuss what can be done about the climate.

The UK prime minister was there. You’ll need binoculars to spot him - back row, second left.

The PM, foreign secretary and King Charles all travelled to Dubai by private jet. Three of them, one jet each! Doing their bit to help save on emissions.

Sunak (UK prime minister) spent more time in the air than he did at the conference!

[thesobsister]

The nice folks at The Juice Media rake the Australian government over the coals regularly. This one is particularly good, as they eviscerate Oz's leadership for its attempts to slap lipstick on the pig that is its shit climate record by hosting the COP31 climate summit in partnership with the Pacific islands.

These videos—highly recommended by your sobsister—are like The Daily Show with Wolverine's claws and a beauty pageant smile.

[fashionlandscapeblog]

There are over 600 fossil fuel lobbyists at Cop 27 Climate Summit, that’s more than the combined delegations from the world’s 10 most climate-impacted countries. Dirty fossil fuel money & influence should be nowhere near this climate conference - new fossil fuels must stay firmly in the ground - Caroline Lucas, Green MP.

[sonyachristian]

California Community Colleges driving climate action

[prose2passion]

happening June 4-7, 2025

[bumblebeeappletree]

Is the world ready to move away from fossil fuels? Here’s a breakdown of COP28’s final agreement. 🌍

Originally posted on YouTube on December 13th, 2023

[tornadoquest]

Tornado Quest Top Science Links For December 9 - 16, 2023 #science #weather #climate #climatechange #climateemergency #drought #winter #wintersafety #tornado #cop28 #spaceweather

Greetings everyone. Thanks for stopping by. This week’s post will continue with very helpful winter weather safety information including an infographic on dressing for cold weather and a wind chill chart. We’ll take a look at a concise overview of COP28. There is plenty of other reads, so let’s get started. Photo by David Bartus via Pexels A recent solar flare clearly illustrated the importance…

[lifepulse]

Amidst Climate Summit Buzz, Palestine's Environmental Woes Cry Out

The countdown to the launch of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28) has begun, as the United Arab Emirates prepares to receive representatives of the countries of the world participating in this conference, which seeks to achieve the highest climate ambitions.

Read More

[head-post]

EU to discuss trade and climate issues with China at summit on Thursday

EU representatives will discuss a range of issues with Chinese leaders from the war in Ukraine to trade co-operation at a summit on Thursday, Reuters reports.

European Council President Charles Michel, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in the morning and Premier Li Qiang of the Chinese State Council in the afternoon as part of their one-day visit to China.

EU officials do not expect concrete results from the first face-to-face EU-China summit since 2019. One EU official said:

There’s not a single outstanding deliverable that will be crowning the summit.

In contrast to that summit, Xi’s November meeting with US President Joe Biden in California resulted in agreements, although differences remain between them, especially on Taiwan.

Read more HERE

[nepalenergyforum]

Nepal to Seek Emission Reduction and Inclusion at COP28

KATHMANDU, Nov 18: Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal  has said he would put forth Nepal’s views and stand on climate change impact straightforwardly at the upcoming UN climate event, COP28. It is the 28th Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Addressing a program organized by Nepal Mountaineering Association to hand over peace torch at base camp of…