POLICY BRIEF article
Front. Clim.
Sec. Climate, Ecology and People
This article is part of the Research TopicIntersections of Climate Change and Indigenous Peoples’ Health and WellbeingView all articles
Implementing Indigenous Rights Through Climate–Health Governance: Advancing the Indigenous Determinants of Health Framework within the UNFCCC
Provisionally accepted
- 1United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues- UNPFII, Washington, United States
- 2Indigenous Determinants of Health Alliance, Washington, DC, United States
- 3Acal El Hajeb/AZUL Network, Tangier, Morocco
- 4Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, United States
- 5Sunway Centre for Planetary Health, Sunway University, Selangor, Malaysia
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As the UNFCCC evolves, the urgency to advance Indigenous Peoples' Rights within global climate governance has never been greater. COP 30 offers a powerful starting point to embed reforms that center Indigenous leadership, rights and knowledge systems. This article proposes integrating the Indigenous Determinants of Health (IDH) Framework into UNFCCC processes to realize Indigenous Rights as affirmed by UNDRIP and the Paris Agreement. Drawing on CBD Decision 16/19, we highlight entry points in the Global Stocktake, the Gender Action Plan and the national adaptation planning, alongside five additional mechanisms on adaptation, finance, and loss and damage. We argue the IDH provides a rights-based structure for implementing Article 7.5 of the Paris Agreement and ensuring alignment with UNDRIP, FPIC and cultural safety.
Keywords: Indigenous determinants of health, UNFCCC, IDH Framework, climate adaptation, UNDRIP, FPIC, Cultural safety, Indigenous rights
Received: 02 Sep 2025; Accepted: 27 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Roth, Bermudez Del Villar, Amharech, Forrest and Carvalho. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Alejandro Bermudez Del Villar, alejandro@cedarrockalliance.com
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