With several Gigafactories planned to be built over the coming decade, Norway is taking strides in the battery business. The country’s new ‘industrial adventure’ is promising a ‘green’ and ‘sustainable’ form of economic value creation, bringing jobs and innovation. However, batteries depend on minerals, such as lithium, which are extracted abroad. Therefore, it is important to inquire on what material basis the emerging industry is built, and with what consequences beyond our borders.

Norwegian battery visions

In the past months, electric vehicle (EV) batteries have received enormous attention in Norway – not only due to the country’s high percentage of fossil-free cars on the roads. Several companies are developing factories to produce the world’s ‘greenest’ battery cells, primarily based on lithium-ion technology.

After a new large-scale battery project was announced last December, the national broadcaster NRK reported that potential hosts were “queuing to become battery-municipalities”. The world’s largest aluminum producer Hydro, the state-owned former oil and gas – now energy – company Equinor and Panasonic initiated a battery partnership. Their so-called Joint Battery Initiative is looking for a suitable location for their plants – 82 municipalities across the country have applied to host it.

In the meantime, three other projects aspire to deliver lithium-ion batteries within half a decade. One of them is in Mo i Rana, an industrial town just below the arctic circle. Freyr, which recently got listed on the New York Stock Exchange, is constructing four battery plants with up to 43 GWh capacity by 2025. These factories could produce cells for up to 800’000 electric cars a year. The Rana municipality is optimistic: Expecting 1500 new jobs, it bought shares in Freyr worth 10 million NOK last year, and is even considering to build a new airport.

The new battery industry in Norway promises economic growth, up to 30’000 jobs, regional development and technological innovation. In its latest climate action plan, the government identified industries along the battery supply chain as key to ‘green growth. Battery technology also speaks to desires of mitigating climate change: According to Morten Halleraker, Head of Batteries at Hydro, lithium-ion batteries are “one of the solutions to our generation’s biggest challenges: global warming”.

The initiatives in Norway are in line with the European efforts to ramp up battery production. More importantly, however, batteries and other renewable technologies are envisioned by industry experts to guarantee Norway’s future as an “energy superpower” in light of decreasing demand for fossil fuels. In other words: “Putting its industrial capacity and financial strength to use in the green transition could turn the country from a ‘climate villain’ to a green giant”, a recent UCL policy brief stated.

Even though it remains to be seen how, and if at all, the Norwegian battery dream becomes reality, it is certain that a shift from oil and gas production to renewable energy technology would still depend on forms of extraction. Battery manufacturing relies on vast amounts of minerals such as lithium, which are mostly sourced from abroad.

Critical towards the ‘green’ and ‘responsible’ promise

The battery projects aim to manufacture ‘green’ batteries in Norway. A low carbon footprint is on one hand guaranteed by Norway’s electricity supply – 98 percent of its electricity comes from renewable sources. On the other hand, ‘green’ batteries are understood as being based on low-carbon and responsibly sourced raw materials. For instance, on their website, Freyr declares their intention to develop a ‘green’ value chain and to produce ‘clean’ battery cells made from raw materials “with the lowest possible carbon footprint and socially responsible production”.

The environmental organization Naturvernforbundet (Friends of the Earth Norway) is sceptical towards the emerging battery industry’s promises. The regional sections of the organization in Nordland and Trøndelag raised concerns about how ethical and carbon-neutral sourcing of battery minerals in reality can be, and condemned the industry’s claim to be ‘green’. When the plans for a gigantic battery plant in the North were announced, the Nordland section criticized a possible windmill park accompanying the project and the grand scale of the plans. Yet, with the decreasing relevance of wind energy for Freyr, they showed themselves more supportive. Surprisingly, with the notable exception of Naturvernforbundet, Norwegian civil society has been rather quiet about the new large-scale industrial visions.

The organization is concerned about environmental damage and social problems resulting from the extraction of battery materials, such as nickel, cobalt, graphite, manganese and lithium. For instance, they raise environmental concerns caused by the vast consumption of water and land due to lithium extraction. In the so-called ‘lithium triangle’ in South America, extreme water shortages and increased risks for soil and air contamination are affecting local residents’ livelihoods. Currently, most battery-grade lithium is sourced either from brine in Chile and Argentina, or from hard-rock deposits in Australia. Some lithium projects have been facing strong opposition, as the protests by indigenous activists in Chile amidst the country-wide protests against social inequality exemplify.

The Norwegian Naturverforbundet is not only questioning how, but also on what scale and intensity, the extractive rush for lithium and other battery raw material are taking place. Their criticism is relevant: Phasing out fossil-fuel driven cars – i.e. Norway bans their sale from 2025 – the demand for ‘critical raw materials’ is rising quickly. The latest International Energy Association report, for instance, expects the demand for lithium in batteries to grow 30-fold until 2030 and more than 100-fold by 2050. As a consequence, lithium mining will inevitably increase.

Lithium from Europe?

The European battery sector has been concerned by the Chinese dominance in the lithium supply chain, and by the increasingly important labeling of metals with carbon tags and environment, social and governance (ESG) standards. As a consequence, governments and mining industries are eying new mineral reserves to tap into, in order to secure steady supplies of lithium in the future.

Norway has increased its geological mapping to identify underground resources – including in the deep sea. On land, Norway does not have any economically viable lithium deposits, according to the Norwegian Geological Survey. On the seabed, however, recent expeditions have discovered high concentrations of lithium, amongst other minerals, along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. When, and if at all, these deposits will be ‘harvested’ remains unclear.

In Europe, a number of hard-rock mining projects have been announced in Serbia, Finland, Portugal and Spain. However, Bloomberg Metals analyst Kwasi Ampofo, believes that by 2030, Europe will still have no significant capacity in producing lithium chemicals. Considering that Chinese actors largely control the lithium supply chain, lithium will likely still be shipped across the globe, at least for the first generations of Norwegian batteries. In the future, European mining could lower carbon emissions of European batteries by shortening transport routes, and increase supply security for Norwegian and European battery producers.

Expanding mining of battery raw materials in Europe is strongly supported by the European Union. According to the EU, a ‘reliable, secure, and sustainable access to raw materials is a precondition for Europe’s Green Deal’. Recent efforts to develop battery policies and regulations have implied mandatory supply chain due diligence: The latest proposal for the EU batteries regulation recommends to include lithium in the scope of the supply chain due diligence obligations and requires its sourcing to be sustainable. The Norwegian government will adapt its law accordingly, and has already proposed a new human rights transparency and due diligence regulation. These steps seem to move into a positive direction in terms of responsibility and accountability of lithium sourcing.

Mining projects in Europe, however, have not been less contested than elsewhere. In Spain or Portugal, for instance, people have opposed lithium mining plans in local and national protests. For them, open-pit mines threaten local heritage, natural environments and livelihoods. Local activists and residents in Northern Portugal fear pollution and destruction and in the name of ‘green’ mobility and ‘clean cities’.

Decarbonising (individual) transportation with battery driven EVs is bound to rely on minerals such as lithium. And while increasingly attention is paid to responsible, transparent – and shorter – supply chains, the projected spike in extraction creates ambiguities in perceptions of what ‘green’ and ‘sustainable’ futures are.
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Anna-Sophie Hobi is a PhD Fellow at Noragric. With an interest in themes of energy transition and extractivism, her research focuses on lithium and its role in the futures of Zimbabwe and Norway. Previously, Anna-Sophie worked on transparency and responsibility in the commodity sector as a Mercator Fellow on International Affairs. She studied Social Anthropology and Prehistoric Archaeology at the University of Basel and Linnaeus University.

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This article is also published on the Lithium Worlds website.

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Olav B. Soldal offers his impressions from a trip to Costa Rica earlier this year where he was part of an NMBU field course working with a community struggling to resist the pressures of the dominant pineapple corporation in the region. 

Costa Rica, known to most as a land of lush rainforests and a biodiversity hotspot, is at a crossroads. The country of about 4.9 million people has experienced rapid economic growth and urbanization over the last decades, and is now considered one of the most developed countries in Latin America.

The country is internationally renown for its remarkably peaceful history in a region otherwise marked by violent conflicts and political upheavals, and the abolition of its armed forces in 1949. Since a largely peaceful revolution in 1948, the country has avoided the disruption of democratic due process. Yet today, Costa Rica’s economy is fragile, with government debt at record levels, and political backlash to recent VAT adjustment and growing food prices. In common with other countries in the region, Costa Rica is also feeling the pressure of a changing climate, with longer dry seasons and more extensive forest fires.

Despite ambitious policies on climate action, its role as a world biodiversity hotspot and its efforts to regenerate forests, Costa Rica is struggling to conserve its ecosystems. Agri-business, in the shape of plantation production with the export of tropical produce such as coffee, bananas and pineapple, is the mainstay of the Costa Rican economy. Pineapple now tops the list of the country’s exports, surpassing the historical dominance of bananas. With its economic dependence on this sector, growing pressure is being placed on large swathes of Costa Rica’s rainforest ecosystems. The multinational corporations that hold a firm grip on the country’s primary production sectors are accused of increasingly malign political interventions in order to maintain their favourable conditions. A large proportion of Costa Rica’s lower income population work on the plantations, and politicians tout the importance of the sector for employment opportunities.

Has the pineapple industry become bitter sweet?

There is an inherent contradiction between ecological conservation and expanding plantations in Costa Rica, and the pineapple is at the centre of it all.  As more attention is given to deforestation caused by encroaching plantations, environmental organizations  have been putting increasing pressure on wealthier nations to limit their import of these tropical products. The Costa Rican government has vowed to protect and reforest up to 60% of its land area and reverse the “degradation of marine and terrestrial ecosystems” by 2050. At the same time, it has committed to deliver ‘green growth’ and to stimulate its growing plantation economy. Whilst being a steady source of income and positive to the Costa Rican terms of trade, has the pineapple industry become rather bitter sweet?

Pineapple farming and land-use conflict

In June 2019, I participated in a practicum course jointly run by NMBU, the American University in Washington and the UN Peace University as part of their ongoing cooperation on research-based training. The specific purpose of the fieldtrip was to examine the roots of land use conflict caused by the expansion of pineapple farming in Costa Rica.

Pineapple has become Costa Rica’s largest export crop over a short period. It uses high quantities of pesticides and research has illustrated the negative impacts on ground water and on biodiversity. It encroaches protected and indigenous land and threatens forests. The social conditions of workers as well as those living around the plantations violate human rights (e.g., life, food, water). Pesticides flow into the drinking water surrounding plantations. Workers and community members report health impacts and birth defects.

The focus of our study was the community development association of Longo Mai in southwestern Costa Rica. Through the practicum, we were primarily concerned with providing answers that could be of value to the community and its long-term autonomy, sustainability and development.

I was part of a group of students focused on health issues and environmental impacts related to pineapple production including how pineapple plantations have impacted land-use, ownership and economic opportunities in the region.

Why Longo Mai?

Longo Mai is a small, diverse community in the San Jose region region of Costa Rica, with residents originating from El Salvador, Nicaragua, Switzerland, Germany, and elsewhere in Costa Rica, including some of indigenous heritage. During the 1970’s, there was a great deal of civil unrest throughout Central America, as well as in Pinochet’s Chile. The Somoza family had been running Nicaragua as if it were a business, controlling the majority of the country’s production and export. In 1978, the government of Nicaragua assassinated a conservative party critic named Pedro Juaquin Chamorro resulting in large protests, which were forcefully quashed leading the opposition to take to arms. In 1979, Nicaragua underwent a revolution led by the Sandinista movement against the Somoza regime. El Salvador also experienced a civil war between 1980 and 1992. Salvadoran armed forces committed human rights violations, including a number of massacres during the early 1980’s. It was to this backdrop that the Longo Mai movement in Europe decided to establish a community in Central America in 1979, to create a refuge for those fleeing persecution and civil unrest in the region.

An oasis in a desert of pineapple

Upon arriving in Longo Mai, my first impression was how pristine the nature and landscape was. The built environment blended into the forest, creating a unique, fresh micro-climate  in contrast to the surrounding arid plantation landscape. Our interviews with community members soon revealed, however, that things were far from perfect in paradise.

Environmental contamination and loss of biodiversity

The community had experienced rapid change over the past two decades, mainly due to the ever-expanding plantations in the neighbouring landscape. There was an acute sense of biodiversity loss, perceived risks of harm from pesticides and contamination of aquatic resources. A study the by University of Costa Rica found traces of six different pesticides in the Terraba-Sierpe Wetlands located in the neighbouring municipality. There is also a sense that the ownership and use of the land is changing rapidly, perhaps most acutely in the neighbouring town of Volcán, where most smallholder farmers have sold of their land to large pineapple-plantation companies. Today, there are almost no smallholders left, expect for in Longo Mai, and almost no-one owns the land on which they work.

There is a schism between the generations when it comes to defining what is appropriate land-use and good farming. The older generation has a strong connection to the land and would prefer to work it independently, whilst the younger generation regard the plantation jobs as a good source of income and an important driver of economic development.

The shift to employment-based income has altered the lifestyles and social dynamics among people in the region, and many report an increasing reliance on imported goods. This shift has generated tension over land management, with more community members expressing doubt over land ownership structures as the land-use practices have changed with the generations. There is real concern in the community that the cooperative structure of land management is faltering under ever-increasing pressures from the plantation industry and public authorities.

Our own research indicates that the unique model of land ownership of Longo Mai, where land is collectively held and managed, has protected the community from encroachment by the pineapple company, PINDECO. In contrast to the neighbouring community of Volcán, land has not been sold off to the company, and the pastoralist lifestyle has been maintained. As a result, ecological impacts were seen to be significantly lower in Longo Mai.

Finding common ground

The community of Longo Mai faces a bumpy road ahead. Pressure from the authorities and plantation industry are unlikely to subdue in the near future.

When asked what characterises the identity of Longo Mai today, a common emphasis was placed on cultural pluralism, peace and environmentalism. Topics that represented disagreement amongst the community included tolerance, respect for the elderly, and increased involvement with the pineapple industry. Overall, we found that the values that people associated with the community stemmed from their motivations to move to Longo Mai in the first place; families who had come from situations of war and violence identified peace as the main value of the village and those who came to escape economic hardship emphasized the opportunities available in Longo Mai if one works hard enough.

Regarding aspirations for the future, the theme was largely the same across the community: Better schooling options, including for older children (Longo Mai only has a primary school), more teaching on organic agriculture, more solidarity between groups, and a more representative community leadership (not just Europeans and men, as one interviewee pointed out). Many also voiced concern for alternative economic opportunities, so that youth don’t have to leave the community to make a living.

By the end of our stay, we realized that the community was more or less unified in their desire to identify routes to a greener, healthier future.

I left Longo Mai with the realization that our research had revealed something unexpected. Despite the challenges faced by communities on the margins of pineapple plantations such as Longo Mai, it is still possible to conceive a peaceful and prosperous society, through dialogue and living in harmony with the natural surroundings.

This could be a lesson for the rest of Costa Rica, and indeed the Western hemisphere, as we all strive to find a balance between economic and ecological sustainability. While Costa Rica is a highly developed and peaceful part of a largely troubled region, it is also a country marked by high levels of inequality, corporate cronyism and political corruption. The Costa Rican rainforest represents one of the world’s greatest biodiversity hotspots – and mitigating global climate change hinges on succeeding in forest conservation. So, before we next indulge in a sweet bite of pineapple, we might first ask if the plantation economy that underpins it is just too hard to swallow.

Olav Soldal is a student on Noragric’s MSc programme in International Environmental Studies.

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Indigenous peoples are no longer ’observers’ at the UNFCCC. As effective ’contributors’ to shaping the plans for the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples’ Platform (The Platform), Indigenous Peoples have unprecedented opportunities to enhance their participation across UNFCCC processes. So what happens now?

A new alliance

At COP24 in Katowice, the Parties passed a landmark decision to establish a Facilitative Working Group (FWG) of the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform (LCIPP). The establishment of this group, whose mandate is to create a work plan for the LCIPP and implement its functions, is historic in the context of indigenous movement. It constitutes the beginning of a new partnership with the Parties, based on the principles of equal status of indigenous peoples and Parties, including in leadership roles. Furthermore, the Platform enhances indigenous peoples participation and visibility in UNFCCC’s processes.

For the indigenous peoples, the Bonn Climate Change Conference (SB50) started with the gathering of 13 FWG members, six from the Parties and seven indigenous peoples, as well as other indigenous peoples and Parties interested in the Platform.  The first task of the FWG was to develop a two-year work plan for the Platform to be decided by the Parties at the COP25 in Santiago, Chile.

During this meeting, I witnessed the extraordinary process of Indigenous Peoples’ direct contribution to crafting the activities of the LCIPP, as the FWG took an inclusive, open and transparent approach to the development of the work plan. Every idea was considered and reflected in the first draft of the work plan during the meeting. What was also interesting to observe was the layout of the meeting room, which resembled the setup from the Talanoa dialogue, an indigenous way of conducting open, inclusive and transparent dialogue. This may be interpreted as a way of indigenising the conversation on climate change, to help build a relationship with the indigenous peoples. It seemed that the ‘Observer’ tags around the necks of these people no longer characterized their identity in the UNFCCC. The only observer of course, was me, observing the meeting for research purposes. The work plan remains a work in progress at the time of writing.

In the context of UNFCCC, the Platform is one of a number of constituted bodies within the Convention. Others include the Adaptation Committee and the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage.  These bodies provide advice and expertise to advance the implementation of the Convention, the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. In practical terms, this not only puts the Indigenous Peoples and the Platform on a radar within and outside of the Convention, but also means that the Platform and by extension, Indigenous Peoples, are now invited to collaborate across various constituted bodies both within and outside the Convention to provide inputs to their respective activities.

What happened to the Spirit of Paris? Indigenous Peoples at COP24 in Katowice, Poland

As the Platform appeared on the radar of the SB50, the response by other constituted bodies was immediate. In the first workshop, a number of constituted bodies within the Convention showed a great deal of interest in the Platform. At the second workshop on collaboration with bodies outside of the Convention, a variety of actors such as UN Specialized Agencies, charities, and universities, offered their ideas for synergy with the Platform. What these interactions indicate is that the work of FWG extends far beyond the implementation of the functions of the Platform. As a constituted body, the recognition also brings about new opportunities for Parties to encounter and understand the value of traditional knowledge, as well as the requirement for Indigenous Peoples to engage effectively with a variety of actors on themes ranging from adaptation and mitigation, technology, methods and observation to loss and damage.

Meanwhile, important discussions continue amongst Parties at SB50. The language of human rights – including those of indigenous peoples – still remains bracketed (i.e. not agreed upon) in many of the key draft texts under consideration, such as on the implementation of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. Recalling that the Platform is only as strong as the degree to which various decisions by the Parties respect human rights and the rights of indigenous peoples, there remains significant work ahead in terms of lobbying the Parties, in unison with other actors advocating a rights-based approach to climate policy and action. Equalization and protection of indigenous peoples’ knowledge is an important aspect of Indigenous Peoples’ diplomacy in this context.  

Indigenous Peoples embody 80% of the world’s cultural and biological diversity

For the last five years, indigenous peoples have made great sacrifices to contribute to the UNFCCC, taking time away from their families and communities to travel around the world, in order to create a permanent space for indigenous peoples and to get the Platform off the ground. This achievement cannot be underestimated, though everyone knows that this is only the beginning.

Significant work lies ahead in terms of getting the Parties to agree on a more ambitious and bold target to address the adverse effects of climate change. Even more difficult challenges lie ahead for indigenous peoples in attempts to sway the Parties to safeguard their rights. The recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights enhances their capacity to take care of their environments using their own knowledge. We mustn’t forget that indigenous peoples embody and nurture 80% of the world’s cultural and biological diversity.

Just the beginning…

Progress will require close and transparent collaboration between the Indigenous Peoples Caucus and the FWG, so as not to create a disconnect within Indigenous Peoples at the UNFCCC. Indigenous Peoples may now be required to look beyond the Platform in order to cover the gaps as they appear as a consequence of the establishment of the Platform, and the immediate expansion of Indigenous Peoples’ possibilities at the UNFCCC. The Platform opened up many spaces for Indigenous Peoples at the UNFCCC to take their voices beyond the plenary sessions and interact with the Parties to build mutual understanding. It is still unclear how it will pan out, but one thing is certain:  everyone is watching.

Tomohiro Harada is a PhD Fellow at the Department of International Environment and Development Studies, focusing on indigenous diplomacies in global politics, specifically Sami diplomacies in global environmental politics.

The post Indigenous Peoples: Moving beyond the UNFCCC Platform appeared first on Noragric blog.

Written by Tomohiro Harada, PhD Fellow, Noragric

This last week 30,000 people from across the world gathered at the heart of Europe’s coal mining region to address the biggest threat to humanity: the adverse effects of climate change. During the first week at COP24 in Katowice, I followed the footsteps of Indigenous Peoples at the frontline of diplomacy at the Climate Change Summit. Three years after Paris, the Parties and Indigenous Peoples came to a consensus on the draft text for the operationalization of the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform (LCIPP). It is the first milestone for the establishment of a partnership between Indigenous Peoples and the Parties under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The agreement offers a glimmer of hope for Indigenous Peoples around the world, who because of their livelihoods are often the first to experience the worst consequences of the radical shifts taking place in the environment. However, as nothing is decided until everything is decided, Indigenous Peoples remain concerned about the declining “Spirit of Paris” as COP24 enters its final rounds of negotiation.

At the frontlines of climate change

Indigenous Peoples are at the frontlines of climate change. From day one of the COP negotiations, Indigenous Peoples Organisations representing their respective communities have participated in the plenaries, informal consultations, side-events and press conferences at the event. They have also been able to enter a dialogue with the COP Presidency on how they are affected by climate change. One indigenous youth representative from the Pacific gave an account of how her community will be under water within her lifetime because of the rising sea level. Another from the Arctic conveyed fear for his life and community as he described how the melting permafrost has made his land increasingly dangerous and unsuitable for traditional use. Youth participation at Climate Change Summits has grown in recent years, and indigenous youths are no exception. At COP24, all these youths argue that their future is at stake and that immediate actions are necessary to address the adverse effects of climate change.

The Indigenous Peoples Caucus at COP, represented by International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC), is one of the nine constituencies recognised by UNFCCC. There are 370 million Indigenous Peoples across 5,000 nations around the world, each with its own distinct language, culture, and social and political institution apart from mainstream society. They are united by a common cause to address historic inequities that have resulted in their communities being marginalised and victimised. In the context of climate change, Indigenous Peoples do not only stand at the frontline where they are most vulnerable to the changing climate, but they also offer solutions as they guard over 80% of the remaining biodiversity with knowledge and practices specific to their respective environments.  Indigenous Peoples come to COP to make a unique contribution to ensure that climate actions are more effective, inclusive and just.

One of the most important processes for the Indigenous Peoples at COP24 has been to determine a new decision text for the operationalization of the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples’ Platform. The Paris Agreement and Decision adopted at COP21 in Paris in 2015 (Decision 1/CP.21) acknowledges that “climate change is a common concern of human kind”, and that when the Parties take action to address climate change, they should respect, promote and consider their respective obligation on the rights of indigenous peoples. Having recognised the need to strengthen knowledge, technologies, and practices, the Paris Agreement established LCIPP to enable the exchange of experiences on mitigation and adaptation in a holistic and integrated manner.

At COP23 in Bonn in 2017, it was agreed that the LCIPP will have three main functions:

1. Knowledge: Promoting the exchange of experiences and best practices
2. Capacity building: Enabling local communities’ and indigenous peoples’ engagement in the UNFCC process
3. Climate Change Policies and Actions: Facilitating the integration of diverse knowledge systems

Additionally, COP23 requested the establishment of a facilitative working group (FWG). The decision recommended that the four key principles proposed by Indigenous Peoples Organisations should be taken into account:

1. Full and effective participation of indigenous peoples
2. Equal status of indigenous peoples and Parties, including in leadership roles
3. Self-selection of indigenous peoples representatives in accordance with indigenous peoples’ own procedures
4. Adequate funding from the secretariat and voluntary contributions to enable the functions of LCIPP

I have been following this particular negotiation process, from various informal consultations and workshops in Helsinki in February, to Bonn in May, Cochabamba in October and now to Katowice.         

The Spirit of Talanoa

The negotiation over the establishment of the FGW and operationalization of LCIPP has been a delicate process since the adoption of the Paris Agreement. There has been a great deal of diplomacy in all directions imaginable and Indigenous Peoples have worked in partnership with Parties, forging mutual understanding and respect, and perhaps most importantly in this case, friendship. Since COP23 in Bonn, it became customary for the Parties to invite Indigenous Peoples into the negotiation space and have their representatives participate in the drafting of the text, to ensure that they are part of this consensus building process.

As the days went by, the strict diplomatic protocol that governs Party consultations had given away to what some have called “the spirit of Talanoa”. Storytelling was an important part of this process. In articulating the necessity of the LCIPP and the Indigenous Peoples’ participation in addressing climate change, elders have often shared, in session, their vulnerabilities and how, in partnership with the Parties, their traditional knowledge can contribute to saving Mother Earth. During the break, many Indigenous Peoples, in the presence of several Party representatives, took to the floor to share their music, dance and traditional knowledge. It is important to mention here that, like any other consultation process under UNFCCC, negotiation was both a tough and delicate game. In Bonn in May and in Katowice, many Indigenous Peoples felt that they had reached a seemingly irreconcilable impasse. However, unlike any other Party Consultations, this particular one enabled the equal participation of the Parties and non-Party stakeholders (i.e. Indigenous Peoples), as they shared their stories without apportioning any blame.

It is in this spirit that we saw an evolving relationship among the Parties and Indigenous Peoples in the room. As a result, the notion of “friendly Parties” started to materialize, with more openness and inclusiveness. In Bonn in May, it seemed clear to many Indigenous Peoples which of the Parties posed the greatest challenges to drafting process of LCIPP. China, for instance, insisted that a language of “territorial integrity and political unity of sovereign and independent States” be used in the draft text. This was a  language that was not acceptable to Indigenous Peoples and their supporters, including the EU, Canada and Norway. However, as the consultation continued, I witnessed an increasing interaction between Indigenous Peoples and “non-friendly Parties”. Their respective pains and desires became more contextualised through storytelling; China began to share their vulnerabilities and their vision of LCIPP through storytelling. This not only helped many in the room to understand exactly what their main concerns were, but also showed that China believes its traditional knowledge can contribute to LCIPP. What transpired in Cochabamba and Katowice is a transformative process where “friendship status” is no longer defined by common position, but by openness to dialogue and a prioritisation of inclusiveness. The day after the Indigenous Peoples and the Parties reached consensus on the text, the mood in the Indigenous Caucus was jubilant. Amazingly, in the middle of the Caucus, the Chinese negotiator has now become a friend of the Indigenous Peoples, even connecting through WhatsApp. According to the Indigenous COP veterans, this was an unprecedented event in the history of the Caucus.

The importance of storytelling

We have all learned, through the repeated interventions by Indigenous Peoples, the potential of not only traditional knowledge in addressing the adverse effects of climate change, but also storytelling as a way to relate, share vulnerabilities and potentials, and to build mutual trust and understanding. This unique process enables us to visualise how Indigenous Peoples can transform diplomacy when given the space, rights and recognition to share their stories in their own way. Through this practice, the consultation demonstrated a lot of promise as to what the FWG and LCIPP could be when they are fully operational. By carrying out diplomacy in accordance with the “Spirit of Talanoa” –  the indigenous way of doing diplomacy –  this consultation process was already beginning to perform the functions of the LCIPP.

Erasure of human rights and the rejection of the Special Report

When one zooms out from the LCIPP consultation to the rest of COP, however, a different impression is gained – “Spirit of Paris” and the “Spirit of Talanoa” has gone AWOL. For the last couple of days, we have started to see, one by one, the languages associated with rights-based climate action, including human rights, bracketed and erased from the drafted texts of the agenda items under Paris Rulebook. The weakening of the rights-based approach to climate action also dilutes the effectiveness of LCIPP, being based as it is on a respect for indigenous rights. Another big blow is that the Parties have failed to adopt the IPCC Special Report on 1.5 degrees released this October, following a series of objections mounted by the United States, Russia, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia who jointly refused to welcome the report at the plenary session. It is expected that the proponent Parties of this report will attempt to revive this discussion next week. However, time is running out. Without the IPCC Special Report on 1.5 degrees as a basis for further negotiation, the Paris Rulebook – should it be adopted – is bound to fall far too short of the recommendations of the IPCC Report, as well as the expectations set forth in the Paris Agreement.

So where does this leave the Indigenous Peoples for the remainder of COP24? Indeed, nothing is decided until everything is decided. The adoption of LCIPP still depends entirely on the outcome of the high-level segment, which is set to begin this week. Some see that it is already out of their hands. The conversations are highly technical and political and their resources are thin. An indigenous delegate commented:

Back home… they maybe don’t see climate change in terms of a rulebook. They maybe don’t see climate change in terms of specific little paragraphs with specific wordings… that can absolutely screw you over

Their stories are buried altogether by endless political bickering, an alphabet soup of acronyms, catch phrases and complicated concepts, which are completely devoid of any meaningful connection to those who stand at the frontline of climate change.

But they refuse to remain silent. In the Spirit of Talanoa, they continue to share stories about their mountains, rivers, forests and oceans in their own way and at every opportunity they can find.

The Indigenous Peoples’ fight continues because, as they proclaim, “we are still here”.

I wish to express thanks to Ghazali Ohorella, co-chair of the International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change, and to the many Indigenous Peoples who introduced me to the Caucus in the spirit of openness and friendship.      

Tomohiro Harada is a PhD Fellow at the Department of International Environment and Development Studies, focusing on indigenous diplomacies in global politics, specifically Sami diplomacies in global environmental politics.

The post What happened to the Spirit of Paris? Indigenous Peoples at COP24 in Katowice, Poland appeared first on Noragric blog.

Written by Mikael Bergius, Tor A. Benjaminsen and Mats Widgren. This post is one of a series that will explore the aims and conceptual bases of the Noragric-led Greenmentality project. 

First published in the Greenmentality Blog. 

Since the Rio+20 conference in 2012, the ‘greening’ of growth and economies has been framed as an opportunity for international capital flows to contribute to sustainable development. Critics of the emerging ‘green economy’ have, however, expressed concern about the effects on smallholder livelihoods from a ‘green development’ trajectory focused on ‘modernization’.

This is an emerging scenario in our research on Scandinavian investments within the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT) – the main Tanzanian initiative to implement the green economy in the country. At a side event at the Rio+20 conference, the former Tanzanian Minister of State, Terezya Huvisa, promoted SAGCOT as a ‘laboratory for testing and implementing’ green growth.

Three Scandinavian agribusiness investment projects – Kilombero Plantations (KPL), Green Resources and Agro EcoEnergy [1] – which we discuss in a recent paper published in the Journal of Peasant Studies – illustrate some of the stakes, contradictions and contestations involved when a vision of the green economy is implemented in an African country such as Tanzania.

The three projects, all located within the SAGCOT area, are framed within a vision of development that seeks to proliferate a ‘green’ corporate agri-food regime by bringing the technology and expertise of the West to the rest via capital-intensive, large-scale land investments. There is a strong faith among the promoters of these projects in giving the poor a chance to work their way out of poverty.

The SAGCOT initiative echoes the unfolding discourse around the green economy: that a green agro-capitalism can be created that yields a triple-win future – climate mitigation, biodiversity conservation and development. Through the SAGCOT initiative, and in cooperation with aid donors, international development institutions and the private sector, the Tanzanian government aims to implement a certain vision of ‘green modernization’ by establishing clusters of commercial agriculture. Here, green narratives underpin a long-term vision of development where smallholder-based agrarian economies ‘progress’ to industrial agriculture linked to global markets.

The three Scandinavian investments that we have studied demonstrate the power imbalances between investors and local communities. These have led to lack of transparency and insufficient compensation procedures for loss of homes and land, escalating land prices and disputes (also between smallholders), few jobs and low wages for casual labour and unfulfilled promises and expectations in general.

All three projects have received various forms of support over the Norwegian and Swedish aid budgets. This connection between Scandinavian aid and the private sector is not new. However, it was not until the 1990s that this trend gained momentum. Girded by a widely held perception that Scandinavian states, development agencies and businesses are inherently well-intentioned actors promoting peace, human rights, and fair distribution, there has been a strong private turn of Scandinavian aid in recent decades – a trend reinforced by the converging crises in finance and food systems since 2007.

Veiled under a ‘regime of goodness’, Scandinavian states, development agencies and businesses are no different from other powerful actors in the way their land investment practices tend to be blind to the dispossession and social injustice following in their wake. They too want to secure their piece of the alleged ‘untapped potential’ – land, labour and markets – contained in Africa; the ‘final frontier’ for agribusiness capital, according to the World Bank.

All three projects have been subject to debates in the Scandinavian media, in which we have been involved as critics. The responses to our critique represents a powerful narrative on agricultural modernization subscribed to by both investors and their supporters in academia and the development industry. The choice they leave us with is a false one: Either you support large-scale land investments and contribute to development, or you ‘lock people in eternal poverty’ forcing them to ‘live in straw huts’.

Such false choices do not leave much space for alternative ways of thinking. However, it is increasingly evident that alternative ideas about what ‘modernity’ and ‘development’ entails – across the North/South divide – will be vital as we try to stake out truly sustainable futures that meet the needs of both people and ecology. A growing international movement of smallholders in Via Campesina offers valuable alternative visions rooted in agroecology and land reform.

The question is not about whether to invest in agriculture or not, but about critically rethinking social and ecological relationships, and to invest in smallholders in ways that enhance their control over agricultural production, rather than the opposite.

Notes:

[1] In a recent development this project has been closed down. Agro EcoEnergy has filed a case against the Tanzanian government at International Court for the settlement of investment disputes over contract termination.

Follow more blog posts from this project at the Greenmentality webpages.

Mikael Bergius is a PhD Fellow at NMBU’s Department of International Environment and Development Studies, Noragric. Using a food regime perspective, his PhD research is focusing on contemporary agrarian change in Tanzania.

Tor Arve Benjaminsen is a human geographer and Professor at NMBU’s Department of International Environment and Development Studies, Noragric.

Mats Widgren is a Professor Emeritus at Stockholm University’s Department of Human Geography.

The post Expanding large-scale agriculture in the name of the green economy in Tanzania appeared first on Noragric blog.

Written by Connor Cavanagh, Postdoctoral Fellow, Noragric.  This post is one of a series that will explore the aims and conceptual bases of the Noragric-led Greenmentality project.

First published in the Greenmentality Blog.

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