The statement was held by the Saami Council delegate, Ture Laiti. Photo: Kiara Worth/UNClimateChange
Statement delivered by Saami Council delegate Ture Laiti on behalf of Arctic Indigenous Peoples’ Youth at the Youth Advisory Group Roundtable with the UN Secretary-General during the 31st UN Climate Change Conference (COP31).
Mr. Secretary-General,
My name is Ture Laiti. I’m here representing Arctic Indigenous Peoples’ Youth.
For Indigenous Peoples from the Arctic, the climate crisis today is marked by two fronts:
The first front is the dread of no action: runaway climate change that will cause irreparable damage to our lands, waters and environment.
Permafrost thaw
Glacier melt
Sea ice melt and sea level rise
Forest fires and related smoke pollution
Seasonal shifts and related unstable weather conditions
The second front is the equally destructive pressure of policies in response to climate change:
Mining and resource extraction: Rare earth minerals (REMs), logging, surface-level gold mining, and related groundwater pollution (oil, cyanide, petrol).
Energy: Nuclear, hydro, and wind.
“I refuse to be sacrificed in an attempt to sustain the unsustainable.”
All of this comes without Free, Prior and Informed Consent, our lands grabbed because states consider our land to be either empty or convenient for development. This is green colonialism.
So what is it that we, the Arctic Indigenous Peoples’ Youth, see? We see our lives and our futures slip away. If the states do nothing, we all burn.
If the states do go ahead with their chosen route of green colonialism, our mountains are exchanged for pit mines, our forests turned to timber and our cultures relegated to curiosities in museums.
The world needs decisive and ambitious climate action and dramatic emissions reductions. We know this.
And states absolutely have to commit to ambitious climate action. That being said, this action cannot, under any circumstances, come at the expense of Indigenous Peoples’ ways of living.
It is morally wrong, a violation of our rights, and what?
Capitalism, consumerism and a global reliance on fossil fuels have caused the current state, so we should sacrifice our ancient ways of living in order to perpetuate a fundamentally unsustainable world order that has brought us to the brink of climate collapse.
I refuse to be sacrificed in an attempt to sustain the unsustainable.
Solidarity here means harmonizing the text of the UNFCCC with UNDRIP, particularly FPIC in the UNFCCC as a foundational necessity for the approval of green transition projects.
Also, the UN80 Task Force is forced to make very difficult choices with respect to funding.
We urge the UN to keep spaces here for genuine engagement for Indigenous Peoples, especially in the form of the Permanent Forum and the Expert Mechanism.
We strongly urge the Office of the Secretary-General to protect these spaces and their funding by whatever means are available.