Indigenous leaders voice hope and skepticism at COP29

While we are witnessing an ever-escalating cascade of climate disasters, leaders from the world’s most polluting countries were conspicuously absent from COP29, the United Nations’ annual climate conference. Others boycotted the conference because of host country Azerbaijan’s rampant human rights abuses, particularly its ethnic cleansing of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh last year. Papua New Guinea called the conference “a total waste of time.” Meanwhile, Azerbaijan appointed Elnur Soltanov, the head of its state energy company Socar, as its chief executive to the conference. Soltanov appeared to use the occasion as a forum to cut deals with international petroleum corporations. Nonetheless, there were still over 65,000 registered delegates – making it the second largest in COP’s history. One of those delegates was Chief Wesley Sam from BC’s Ts’il Kaz Koh Nation. The…

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