Climate imperialism refers to the ways in which powerful, most industrialized nations, often in the Global North, shape global climate policies to safeguard their own economic interests while shifting disproportionate costs and responsibilities onto poor countries in the Global South. It also describes how governments, transnational corporations (TNCs), and the multilateral institutions they dominate (such as the UN and World Bank) promote so-called climate “solutions” that serve profit rather than the planet. These initiatives are presented as responses to the climate crisis but are often designed to protect corporate emissions and generate new markets and profits, that, in most cases, displace local communities and violate their human rights.
Imperialism, which we also call global monopoly capitalism, remains entrenched in a long-running recession that has lasted nearly two decades. This deep-rooted systemic economic crisis fuels increased contention for markets, resources, territories, and spheres of influence among the world’s leading imperialist powers and largest TNCs. Such ruthless inter-imperialist competition is accelerating the collapse of global biodiversity and causing unsustainable planetary warming. Meanwhile, the contest for control and profits among the most powerful monopoly capitalist nations and their TNCs is driving wars and militarism, both between states and between states and their populations, resulting in a highly repressive political climate.
Indigenous Peoples are among the most vulnerable, oppressed, and exploited groups, bearing the weight of global monopoly capitalism’s multiple crises. They are among the biggest victims of climate imperialism, the false climate solutions that it peddles, and the human rights abuses that arise from these false solutions. In 2024, PAN Asia Pacific’s (PANAP) Land & Rights Watch report monitored nine Indigenous Peoples who were killed in relation to land conflicts and struggles. Ninety-eight were also arrested, while 38 were harassed or threatened. Around 2,400 were displaced due to land and resource grabbing. Since PANAP started keeping track of human rights violations in the context of the people’s assertion of their rights to land and resources in 2017, PANAP has already monitored 238 Indigenous Peoples killed, 416 arrested, 290 harassed or threatened, and more than 35,000 displaced. These numbers comprise 36% of the total number of victims of killings with identified sectors, 13% for arrests, 36% for threats and harassment, and 46% of displacements. These estimates are conservative, given that numerous incidents of human rights atrocities, especially in the remote areas, go unreported and unmonitored, but these figures offer a glimpse into the severe political repression experienced by indigenous communities worldwide.
Imperialism is using the crises that it brought about through reckless plunder of the planet’s resources to perpetuate further its inherently unsustainable, destructive, and exploitative development model built on accumulating capital, extracting super profits, and creating bigger monopolies. The climate crisis is being used to justify the massive physical, economic, and cultural displacement of numerous indigenous communities worldwide. Driven by profit-oriented, market-based “climate solutions”, there is a growing demand for mining, infrastructure, renewable energy, and conservation projects that are often implemented without respect for the Indigenous Peoples’ rights to their ancestral lands and territories. These resulted in grave violations of Indigenous Peoples’ right to free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) and their right to self-determination.
Carbon markets are turning indigenous lands into commodities on a large scale, enabling big corporations to keep emitting harmful greenhouse gases (GHGs). In Kenya’s Mau Forest, the government has implemented a carbon offset program that has displaced an undetermined number of the Ogiek people from their ancestral lands. About 80% of countries worldwide rely on carbon markets to meet climate goals, placing heavy pressure on indigenous territories. The “30×30” initiative, which supposedly aims to protect 30% of lands/oceans by 2030 and is funded by TNCs, major philanthropic entities, and development cooperation institutions like the USAID, and implemented by large international NGOs with corporate ties, is carrying out conservation projects that have expelled an estimated 15,000 Maasai pastoralists from their ancestral lands in Tanzania and forcibly removed several Maya communities from Mexico’s Biosphere Reserve.
Meanwhile, the transition to renewable energy is fueling a new wave of land grabbing that encroaches on indigenous resources. The global push to replace fossil fuels with renewables has ignited a mining boom for critical minerals like lithium, nickel, cobalt, and copper. Demand for these resources is expected to skyrocket – nickel demand alone could increase sevenfold by 2040 – placing significant pressure on Indigenous Peoples’ lands where many of these deposits are located. Indigenous communities in Latin America’s so-called “lithium triangle” (Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile), where 58% of the world’s known lithium reserves are located, face tremendous pressure from mining companies. In Chile, for example, at least 3,000 people from the indigenous Atacameńo communities may be forced to relocate if water scarcity worsens due to lithium mining.
In the Philippines, the Marcos Jr. administration has been actively promoting mining as a pillar of economic growth, including so-called transition minerals like nickel and copper. It is estimated that mining tenements cover 20% of Philippine lands, and 25% of these are transition mineral zones that overlap with indigenous territories and biodiversity hotspots. Even before the current surge in demand for transition minerals amid the worsening climate crisis, approximately 211,000 hectares of Philippine forests have already been lost to mining, disproportionately impacting Indigenous Peoples who manage 75% of the country’s remaining forests.
Additionally, many renewable energy projects are being developed on ancestral lands. These large-scale “green” energy infrastructures, such as mega dams, large hydropower projects, massive solar and wind farms, and bioenergy facilities, have a substantial land footprint that conflicts with customary land uses and leads to displacement. It was reported that over the past decade, more than 200 allegations of abuse have been made by renewable energy companies, including land and water grabs and rights violations against indigenous communities. Using the guise of climate mitigation, investors and funders exploit political support and incentives for green energy, such as simplified and expedited permitting processes, including the violation of the FPIC. As a result, traditional sources of food, livelihoods, and ancestral homes of numerous indigenous communities are being destroyed, as seen with mega dams and big hydropower projects in the Mekong region, such as Cambodia’s Lower Sesan 2, which displaced indigenous Bunong and other riverine communities, and large solar parks in India that violated Adivasi communities’ land rights.
Mining (including for transition minerals) and energy projects (including large-scale renewable energy infrastructure) are leading sectors where numerous human rights violations are linked to land conflicts and disputes. In 2024, PANAP monitored 11 cases of human rights abuses in mining and another 11 in energy projects. These two sectors make up nearly 44% of all recorded cases with identified industries. Militarization frequently occurs in rural and indigenous communities involved in mining and energy efforts, serving to protect infrastructure, facilitate construction, and suppress local opposition.
Military presence and operations create conditions for grave rights abuses against Indigenous Peoples to happen, often with impunity. Military offensives — in most cases under the hidden aim of paving the way for large private investments in resource-rich but restive rural areas, including indigenous lands — also end up deepening poverty and hunger by destroying or disrupting livelihoods. Operation Kaagar, a large-scale military offensive in central India, for instance, has not only killed hundreds of Adivasi people but also led to the construction of hundreds of security camps that have dispossessed them of their ancestral lands and deprived them of access to livelihood resources. There are also reports that in conflict areas affecting farmers and Indigenous Peoples, military forces are preventing the delivery of humanitarian aid, in violation of human rights and International Humanitarian Law (IHL) principles. In the Philippines, for example, a humanitarian team investigating possible human rights violations linked to the military’s aerial bombardment of a rural village reported being subjected to surveillance and intimidation by suspected military personnel.
Despite mounting repression, dispossession, and environmental destruction, Indigenous Peoples remain at the forefront of the struggle for land, life, and the planet’s future. From the Indigenous communities resisting criminalization and bombings in the Philippines, to the Maasai resisting displacement in Tanzania, to the Atacameño safeguarding water in Chile’s lithium triangle, their courage reflects a vision of justice grounded in the assertion of collective rights. Their resistance is not only a defiance of global monopoly capitalism but also a declaration of an alternative path, one that honors the deep interconnection between people and nature, as well as the values of the common good, communal welfare, and care for future generations. Through unity and solidarity, Indigenous Peoples affirm that their right to self-determination is inalienable and fought for, not privileges to be granted. Their continuing struggle carries the hope that the future can be reclaimed, both for themselves and for all.
Arnold Padilla is the Deputy Executive Director of PAN Asia Pacific