Launched on Indigenous People’s Day in 2021, the Indigenous Land Sovereignty Lifeline displays the total area of land and inland waters currently managed by Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) worldwide.

Indigenous communities are critical stewards of the planet’s natural carbon sequestration capacity, which must be protected in order to prevent the worst impacts of climate change.

According to analysis from the Rights and Resources Initiative, Indigenous Peoples and local communities manage 300,000 million metric tons of carbon stored in their trees and soil, equivalent to 33 times global energy emissions in 2017. In the Amazon Basin, indigenous lands have a higher carbon density per hectare than non-indigenous areas, and many indigenous lands, including many in the Amazon, are carbon sinks, absorbing more carbon than they emit, unlike many other state-managed lands.

Although they comprise less than 5% of the global population, Indigenous People protect 80% of the world’s biodiversity in the forests, deserts, grasslands, and marine environments in which they have lived for millennia.

However, many Indigenous People and local communities across the world lack formal recognition of their land tenure rights by national governments, putting their lands at risk of development and degradation.

"Today, Indigenous land protects life, Indigenous land protects the future,” said Karai Djekupe Guarani, a leader amongst the Guarani People of Brazil. "Besides the white, European way of living, there are other ways of living that need to be respected, including ours.”

Data for the Indigenous Land Sovereignty Lifeline was sourced from The state of Indigenous Peoples’ and Local Communities’ lands and territories report, published in June 2021 by the World Wildlife Fund, the United Nations Environment Programme, and the Landmark Global Platform for Indigenous and Community Lands.

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The current message on the Monumental Climate Clock in Union Square reads:

INDIGENOUS LAND STORES CARBON AND PROTECTS BIODIVERSITY

43.5 MIL KM² LAND PROTECTED BY INDIGENOUS PEOPLE

RECOGNIZE INDIGENOUS LANDS

The Climate Clock’s Loss and Damage Lifeline tracks the climate debt (in $US) that wealthy, high-emitting G20 countries owe for the devastating impacts their excessive carbon emissions have caused to others, especially those in "developing" countries. Paying for Loss & Damage is a key climate lifeline, a clear climate solution to help the world meet its necessary climate goals.

OVERVIEW

Devastating climate change impacts are not only going to occur in the future. They have already been occurring for decades and are now increasing in severity. Countries who have contributed the least amount to carbon emissions have experienced the greatest negative impacts, as the direct result of the higher emissions of wealthier countries, who have benefited greatly. As a result, a climate debt is owed to cover the real, material Loss & Damage costs caused by climate change. These funds are needed for impacted countries to remediate the damage, adapt to a changing climate, while also providing the finances to pursue pathways towards a more just, sustainable future.

IMPACTS

Heat waves, forest fires, droughts and massive floods caused by climate change have become daily headlines, forcing 26 million people into poverty each year. People living in poverty are twice as likely to work in sectors highly susceptible to extreme weather events, live in fragile housing in vulnerable areas, and have less support to recover and rebuild. In 2021 alone, 10 extreme weather events caused a worldwide economic loss of around $170.3 billion. Not only are people losing their homes and livelihoods, but also their culture, dignity and future opportunities. The vast majority of this heartbreak and devastation occurs in “developing” countries.

COST

These impacts have understood since 1979, when  world leaders first recognized climate change as a serious problem at the World Climate Conference. Since then carbon emissions have continued to rise, with devastating impacts, especially on the developing world. The economic burden on developing countries from the damage caused by climate change has become unsustainable. According to researchers at the Center for Global Development, by 2019 the G20 countries had accumulated $29.7 trillion in climate debt, most of it owed to the "developing" countries. Once the 2020 data on CO2 emissions is taken into account, This debt comes to $31.8 trillion ($12.3 trillion for G7). And unless world leaders commit to radically reduce carbon emissions and transition to clean energy, that debt is expected to rise to ~$42T by 2030 (~$15.6T for G7).

OUR GOAL

This lifeline is a tool the climate justice movement can use to demand that the loss and damage climate risk finance framework be finalized at COP27 this November, and to secure trillions of dollars in climate finance for the “developing” world over the next five years.

WHAT DOES THE NUMBER MEAN?

The amount of money (US$) the G20 (and G7) countries owe in climate debt to date, since 1979. Calculation is based on the Carbon Liability Model from the Center for Global Development’s report on Valuing Climate Liabilities: Calculating the Cost of Countries’ Historical Damage from Carbon Emissions to Inform Future Climate Finance Commitments by Lee Robinson, Ian Mitchell, and Atousa Tahmasebi. Updated data from 2020 on historical CO2 emissions were sourced from Our World in Data.

Launched during Climate Week 2021, the Green Climate Fund Lifeline shows the amount of money wealthy countries have contributed to the Green Climate Fund.

Created in 2010, the Green Climate Fund is a finance mechanism set up by the UNFCCC to support critical climate mitigation and adaptation projects in developing countries. At a current confirmed total of $9.52 billion pledged, the Green Climate Fund is woefully underfunded from the goal of $100 billion/year pledged by developed countries by 2020.

Yet even $100 billion is just a start on what is truly needed. According to Sharon Ikeazor, Environment Minister for Nigeria, climate change mitigation alone will cost countries across the Global South upwards of $600 billion each year, with an even greater cost for necessary climate adaptation efforts to protect the world’s most vulnerable regions.

The US is specifically under fire from activists for having failed to pay their fair share of climate finance. While President Biden vowed at the UN General Assembly to double US contributions to climate finance, the latest analysis indicates that rich countries will continue to miss the GCF’s $100B/yr pledge for at least another 4 years.

“Africa, like other developing regions who suffer disproportionate climate impacts from CO2 historically released by industrialized nations, deserves a lifeline,” said Jerome Ringo, Climate Clock Global Ambassador. “Africa needs countries like the US — that are the greatest contributors to the problem — to also contribute the most to helping solve it. The United States is only 5% of the world’s population but is responsible for 25% of the world’s carbon emissions. We must contribute our fair share to the Green Climate Fund.”

Data for the Green Climate Fund Lifeline was sourced from the Green Climate Fund’s official pledge tracking report, detailing confirmed country contributions to the First Replenishment (GCF-1) period (2020-2023). As of June 30, 2021, $9.5243 billion USD in confirmed pledges have been contributed to the GCF.

Gender parity in national governance is an important climate solution.

Currently (according to the IPU), the percentage of women represented in all national parliaments is 26.5%. Women's movements and climate movements the world over aim to raise that to 50%. The demand to achieve gender parity remains a key cross-cutting factor in all negotiations and agreements to combat the adverse effects of climate change. 

Years of research has shown that when women participate in decision-making spaces, not only is there more effective risk management in their communities, they show a greater commitment to promoting climate policies that result in the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. Multiple studies show a clear positive correlation between female representation in parliaments and the robustness of climate action. One study, for example, showed that in countries with 38% or more women legislators, per capita forest cover increased considerably.

The Paris Agreement recognized that women's participation in decision-making was essential to achieve climate justice, and established gender equality and the empowerment of women as key for policy design. In a 2019 report, the International Institute for Sustainable Development states that women must be part of any effective adaptation to climate change.

This lifeline is additionally important, because women – due to the disadvantaged position that historical inequalities have perpetuated – are more adversely impacted by climate breakdown/disruptions than men. It is a core principle of climate justice to take leadership from the most impacted, and to recognize they are also more likely to better understand the solutions that are needed. The state of vulnerability women and girls face, especially in times of crisis, reflected in access to resources, assets, services and participation in decision-making spaces, causing them to be more affected than the rest of the population. Women are also more likely to experience episodes of gender-based violence after disasters, which reduces women's adaptive capacity and resilience, weakening the future resilience of communities, as has been observed in different regional contexts.

For reasons of both justice, democracy, and survival, we must strive to achieve gender parity in national parliaments.

Agriculture contributes 18%-21% of global emissions. Moreover, 52% of agricultural soil is degraded, risking famine and the release of 850 billion tonnes of CO2e. Adopting sustainable agricultural practices, like regenerative agriculture, is key to reducing the sector's emissions and improving food security.

Need for change

Every day, the agriculture sector produces ~24 million tons of food and provides livelihood to 2.5 billion people, serving as the largest source of income for poor and rural households. However, if current agriculture-caused land degradation continues, crop yields are expected to fall by 10% across the world, and up to 50% in certain regions by 2050.

To keep global warming below 2oC, stop biodiversity loss, redress inequalities in food access, malnutrition and hunger, and ensure there is enough quality soil to feed the world, the global agricultural sector will need to raise food production by 60-70% and simultaneously regenerate soil on more than 1.6 billion hectares of cultivated farmland.

Without fundamental reform, the current global food system will be unable to sufficiently improve soil health, ensure food and livelihood security, and adapt to and mitigate climate change. Rapidly scaling up the practice of regenerative agriculture is one key pathway for transforming the global food system.  

Lifeline for change: regenerative agriculture

Regenerative agriculture aims to maintain vegetation cover throughout the year via crop rotation and perennial crops, reduce soil degradation, increase diversity of soil organic matter, maximize nutrient and water use efficiency by crops, integrate livestock management with improved grazing practices, and minimize dependence on chemical fertilizers and pesticides. 

In October 2023, the global land area certified by Regenagri* as regenerative agriculture measured 1,013,455 hectares, a 43-fold increase since December 2020. Between 2022-23, Regenagri noted an average greenhouse gas emission reduction of 1.5 tonnes CO2eq. per hectare under regenerative agriculture and 0.7 to 1 tonnes CO2eq. carbon sequestration per hectare.