Climate Justice for Indigenous Peoples

For Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities, climate justice is inseparable from human rights, self-determination, and development. It requires safeguarding the rights of those most affected by climate change and ensuring that the burdens and benefits of climate action are shared equitably and fairly.

Indigenous Peoples, Local Communities and other marginalized groups experience climate change in complex and devastating ways—through worsening droughts, floods, displacement, and loss of livelihoods—despite contributing least to the crisis.

The climate crisis is not only an environmental challenge; it is a political, social, and ethical one. It is driven by extractive economic systems and unequal concentrations of power and wealth that continue to deepen social and economic inequalities, particularly for Indigenous and marginalized communities.

Climate justice must therefore confront these root causes and center Indigenous and community leadership and solutions.

Our Advocacy

Our climate and energy justice advocacy focuses on

1. Protecting Indigenous Peoples’ Rights and FPIC

Demanding the full realization of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) and safeguarding Indigenous Peoples’ and Local Communities’ rights over their lands, territories and resources.

2. Advancing Equitable Community Energy Access

We advocate for equitable access to affordable, safe, and clean energy that responds to community needs and priorities, and rejects energy projects that undermine rights, livelihoods, or ecosystems.

3. Promoting a Just and Democratic Energy Transition

Advocating for inclusive, equitable, and democratic transition pathways that prioritize people over profits and phase out harmful fossil fuel dependence.

4. Challenging False Climate and Energy Solutions

We expose and challenge false solutions that delay real climate action or shift risks onto communities, including carbon offset schemes, market-driven techno-fixes, and approaches that erode rights or deepen inequality.

5. Strengthening IP & LC Voices in Climate Governance

Ensuring Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities have meaningful, collective influence in national, regional and global climate decision-making processes.

6. Mapping Laws and Policies

Analyzing national legal and policy frameworks affecting land, territory and resource rights, and how they shape communities’ adaptation and mitigation capacities.

7. Documenting Community Knowledge and Experiences

Collecting lived experiences, insights and strategies that strengthen Indigenous-led adaptation and mitigation efforts.

8. Monitoring Climate Processes

Tracking regional and global climate negotiations to ensure transparency, accountability and justice-centered outcomes.

9. Building Grassroots Power

Developing and strengthening grassroots organizing and leadership to enable meaningful participation and raise visibility of community struggles and solutions.

Advancing Climate & Energy Justice

FoLT advances climate and energy justice by supporting Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities to lead, shape, and defend climate and energy solutions rooted in their rights, knowledge, and priorities.