ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – While the steamy rainforests of Brazil are far from Alaska’s arctic, the challenges of climate change discussed at the U.N. climate conference brought the two closer together.
The Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – or COP – is one of the largest gatherings of people, organizations and governments, working together to tackle climate change. This November, the 30th of such conferences was held in Belém, Brazil.
“At this COP, there’s been a few very important issues, including discussions about how to manage carbon markets, discussions about how to ensure that those goals that were set at previous crops would actually be fulfilled, but also which principles that should follow in their fulfillment,” said Sara Olsvig, Inuit Circumpolar Council chair while attending the conference.
Indigenous rights take center stage at COP30
COP30 was often billed as the “indigenous people’s COP,” expected to tackle issues such as deforestation in the Amazon and indigenous people’s rights. So as chair of the ICC, Olsvig attended COP30 on behalf of 180,000 Inuit across Alaska, Canada, Greenland and Russia…