Marina Requena-i-Mora

Today the COP30 climate conference in Brazil witnessed large-scale protests organized by Indigenous peoples both inside and outside the conference venue. The protesters voiced their opposition to international climate policies that marginalize their rights and lands. They argue that their representation in these conferences is often merely symbolic, with little real influence over environmental and climate decision-making, despite being the traditional guardians of the rainforest and among the most affected by climate change. The Indigenous population in Brazil is estimated at around 900,000 people, spread across more than 300 ethnic and linguistic groups, most of whom live in the Amazon region. This region accounts for over half of Brazil's rainforest and is one of the most important ecosystems in the world. These communities play a crucial role in preserving biodiversity and protecting forests from deforestation, which is often driven by mining projects, commercial agriculture, and logging companies. The protesters demand that Indigenous peoples be granted genuine legal and political rights in environmental decision-making, emphasizing that their lands are not commodities to be sold or financial instruments like carbon credits. They strongly criticize so-called carbon markets and environmental governance funds, which are often used as a cover by multinational corporations to continue exploiting natural resources under the guise of environmental protection, without respecting local communities and their rights. At the same time, several African countries, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Mozambique, Angola, Kenya, and South Africa, have seen widespread protests against carbon markets. These markets grant enormous privileges to multinational corporations to take control of local lands and increase demand for natural resources such as cobalt used in electric car batteries, a sector that often relies on child labor and resource exploitation in conflict zones. The protesters also criticize greenwashing, the practice by which companies use tools such as carbon offsets, green investments, and environmental and social governance funds to market themselves as sustainable and ethical, while continuing to exploit cheap labor and pollute the environment without accountability. Protests in Brazil and Africa represent a single face of green capitalism, a system that reproduces the logic of old colonialism: the Global South bears the greatest burden of climate change and the responsibility to protect the planet, while the wealthy Global North continues to pollute and profit.