As climate and conflict collide, Indigenous leaders confront overlapping crises at the UN

This week, hundreds of Indigenous delegates are meeting in Geneva for the 19th session of the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP), a body of seven experts who advise the UN Human Rights Council on Indigenous rights. Leaders from places including Bangladesh, New Caledonia, Canada, and Botswana are discussing how climate change, war, mining, and government neglect are hitting Indigenous communities at the same time, nearly 20 years after the UN adopted its Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Speakers described specific fights playing out right now: in northern Ontario, Canada has granted mining rights on a wetland called the Breathing Lands, part of a mineral deposit known as the Ring of Fire, despite opposition from First Nations in the area. In New Caledonia, Kanak leaders are pushing for independence and climate accountability from larger, wealthier nations. In Botswana, the Nama people say their lack of legal recognition as an Indigenous group makes it hard to fight forced displacement. New concerns this year include artificial intelligence being developed on Indigenous land or data without consent, and countries fast-tracking resource extraction projects without input from affected communities.

This is a policy and human-rights story, not one tied to a specific program or deadline homeowners can act on. It has no direct bearing on home energy upgrades or rebates, but it does touch on the global energy transition and mining for materials like nickel used in batteries and solar equipment, an area where Indigenous rights and climate policy increasingly intersect.