The Paris Agreement: What Got Written Down, What Got Paid

What the Paris Agreement Actually Says

In December 2015, 196 countries adopted the Paris Agreement, the first global climate treaty to name Indigenous peoples directly. The preamble says governments, when taking climate action, should "respect, promote and consider their respective obligations on human rights... the rights of indigenous peoples, local communities, migrants, children, persons with disabilities and people in vulnerable situations." Article 7.5 goes further in one specific area, adaptation. It says adaptation should be "based on and guided by the best available science and, as appropriate, traditional knowledge, knowledge of indigenous peoples and local knowledge systems."

Both sentences carry a catch. The preamble asks governments to "respect, promote and consider" Indigenous rights, not protect or guarantee them. Article 7.5 uses Indigenous knowledge "as appropriate" and integrates it "where appropriate." Those phrases leave every government room to decide when Indigenous knowledge counts and when it does not.

The same 2015 conference created a body meant to close that gap: the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform, known as the LCIPP. It became fully operational in 2018, running through a Facilitative Working Group of 14 members, seven from national governments and seven from Indigenous peoples' organizations. The LCIPP builds capacity, exchanges knowledge, and helps integrate Indigenous knowledge into climate policy. It has no vote at the UN climate talks and cannot force a government to act on what it recommends.

The COP26 Money: A Test of Follow-Through

Six years later, at COP26 in Glasgow in 2021, 25 governments and philanthropic funders pledged $1.7 billion over five years to support Indigenous peoples' and local communities' land tenure rights. The pledge followed research showing that less than 1 percent of international climate finance between 2011 and 2020 had gone to this work at all.

By 2025, the pledge had done something rare for a climate finance promise: it beat its target a year ahead of schedule, mobilizing $1.86 billion. But the number that mattered most to the communities themselves told a different story. Of the money donors reported each year, only a small share went directly to Indigenous and local community organizations. The rest passed through international NGOs and government agencies first. That direct share moved from 2.9 percent in 2021, to 2.1 percent in 2022, up to 10.6 percent in 2023, then back down to 7.6 percent in 2024.

Levi Sucre Romero, an Indigenous Bribri leader from Costa Rica who directs the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests, put it plainly to Mongabay in 2025: "My impression is that the percentage is still very low. But for us, the important thing is that a path was opened, and that path needs to be broadened for future pledges."

Belém, 2025: A Bigger Promise

In November 2025, COP30 met in Belém, Brazil, the first UN climate summit ever held in the Amazon. It drew the largest Indigenous participation in COP history, with organizers counting more than 900 Indigenous delegates inside the official negotiating area alone.

Three commitments came out of it. Governments launched the Intergovernmental Land Tenure Commitment, a pledge to recognize 160 million hectares, an area larger than Iran, of Indigenous and local community land across tropical forest countries by 2030. Brazil's Minister of Indigenous Peoples, Sonia Guajajara, committed at least 59 million hectares of that total from Brazil alone. Alongside it, more than 35 funders renewed the 2021 tenure pledge with a new $1.8 billion commitment for the next five years. Brazil also launched the Tropical Forest Forever Facility, a fund that had raised $6.6 billion of a $125 billion target, paying countries up to $4 per hectare of intact forest kept standing each year, with at least 20 percent of every payment guaranteed to Indigenous and local communities. For the first time, the UNFCCC's Just Transition Work Programme referenced free, prior, and informed consent and the right to self-determination by name.

The same summit exposed the limits of those promises. More than 50 Indigenous and civil society organizations warned that the Tropical Forest Forever Facility's structure lets wealthy investors collect guaranteed returns while developing countries carry the financial risk. No roadmap to end deforestation or phase out fossil fuels made it into the final text, despite more than 90 and 80 countries respectively calling for one. A reference to critical mineral mining, which affects Indigenous land disproportionately since an estimated 54 percent of the minerals needed for the energy transition sit on or near Indigenous territory, was removed from the final draft. During the summit's last week, an Indigenous Guarani leader in Brazil was killed, reportedly by armed individuals linked to private security forces hired by local landowners.

Levi Sucre Romero, the same leader quoted above, reacted to the new pledge with what he called cautious optimism: "Promises alone cannot stop the deforestation, fires, and unprecedented violence we face today in our territories. The funds must reach Indigenous Peoples and local communities directly, without getting stuck in bureaucracy."

What Ten Years Shows

The Paris Agreement named Indigenous rights and knowledge in 2015. Ten years and two more climate summits later, the record is neither a clean success nor a clean failure. The COP26 pledge proved governments and philanthropies could raise real money and hit a real target. It also proved that money moves through the same intermediaries it always has, with only a small and uneven share reaching Indigenous organizations directly. COP30 answered that problem with a bigger promise: more land, more money, a guaranteed percentage this time, and rights language written into UN text for the first time. Whether that promise plays out differently than the last one is not yet known. The same Indigenous leaders welcoming the new pledges are the ones who watched the last set of pledges arrive slowly and unevenly, and they are the ones now saying, cautiously, that this time still has to be proven.

Vocabulary

LCIPP

The Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform, created alongside the Paris Agreement in 2015 and fully operational since 2018. Advises the UNFCCC on Indigenous knowledge but has no vote.

Facilitative Working Group (FWG)

The operating body of the LCIPP: 14 members split evenly between government and Indigenous peoples' organization representatives.

Forest Tenure Funders Group (FTFG)

The coalition of governments and philanthropies behind both the 2021 and 2025 land tenure pledges.

Intergovernmental Land Tenure Commitment (ILTC)

The 2025 pledge to recognize 160 million hectares of Indigenous and local community land by 2030.

Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF)

The fund launched at COP30 that pays countries for keeping tropical forest standing, with at least 20 percent of payments guaranteed to Indigenous and local communities.

Just Transition Work Programme (JTWP)

A UNFCCC process, established in 2022, that in 2025 referenced free, prior, and informed consent and self-determination for the first time.

References

UNFCCC. "Paris Agreement." (2015) unfccc.int

UNFCCC. "Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform." lcipp.unfccc.int

Gabay, Aimee. "COP26 pledge to support Indigenous & local forest tenure was just met. What was learned?" Mongabay, 2025. news.mongabay.com

Lama Hyolmo, Sonam. "What was achieved for Indigenous peoples at COP30?" Mongabay, 2025. news.mongabay.com

Forest & Climate Leaders' Partnership. "Governments aim to collectively recognise 160 million hectares of Indigenous Peoples' and local community lands... philanthropies and donor nations pledge $1.8 billion." (2025) forestclimateleaders.org

Rainforest Foundation Norway and Rights and Resources Initiative. "The State of Funding for Tenure Rights." (2025) regnskog.no