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Can the (Indigenous) subaltern speak (at the IPCC)

Dr Renzo Taddei
Traditional peoples and indigenous populations have been systematically portrayed as defenceless victims of climate change in debates about sustainability. In the United Nations’ 2030 agenda, with its 17 sustainable development goals, for example, they figure as populations whose cultural heritage and physical survival need to be protected by governments and multilateral agencies. Against this trend, it is noteworthy that one of the 2022 reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recognises the value of indigenous knowledge and recommends that it be integrated into the co-production processes of environmental governance, including participatory modelling and climate services. But how is indigenous knowledge integrated into these policies created by Western scientists? Renzo Tadei shows us, through an analysis of the IPCC and the knowledge generated on climate change, that indigenous knowledge has been acclaimed in conservation discourses, but has not been used correctly.
Renzo Taddei teaches anthropology and science and technology studies at the Federal University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. His research focuses on the socio-cultural dimensions of how humans relate to the atmosphere. He has written on climate forecasting, disasters, geoengineering, and Indigenous environmental knowledge. Dr. Taddei is a member of the standing committee on climate services at the World Meteorological Organization. He was a visiting professor at Yale University, Duke University, and the University of the Republic in Uruguay.

Learning points

  • What is the IPCC? What kind of knowledge does it generate?
  • The lecturer tells us that the embodiment of Western society takes place through infrastructures. What is the infrastructure Renzo Tadei is talking about?
  • Why does Taddei say that indigenous knowledge is present in the IPCC but is not used correctly?
  • How can we put Kopenawa’s ideas into conversation with mainstream ideas about the environment?
  • Do Indigenous people need academics or experts to speak on their behalf?
  • Is it simply an epistemological question of different ways of understanding reality? If so, what are the implications of this?
  • What are the strategies of political erasure of traditional forms of understanding?

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