Presentation short abstract

Indigenous communities face new threats from "green transition" projects in the Philippines. Renewable energy and carbon trading schemes violate Indigenous rights and self-determination while perpetuating historical extraction. These initiatives, promoted as climate solutions, cause displacement and

Presentation long abstract

The climate crisis created an urgent need for global solutions. The idea of "transition" has captured the imagination as a solution for a world in peril—from renewable energy to carbon capture. At the epicentre of this pivot are Indigenous communities and their struggles against escalating green-grab projects masquerading as part of the global transition project.

This presentation examines how renewable energy initiatives and carbon trading schemes fashioned as “transition solutions” continue to perpetuate historical extractive models in the Philippines. Promoted as urgent climate action by global North interests, these projects often violate Indigenous self-determination and the right to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC), creating the hazards of displacement, increased militarisation, and the erosion of Indigenous agroecological practices. This condition reveals a paradox: the very communities who serve as stewards of ecological health are the ones being systematically threatened and disempowered.

We argue that for Indigenous peoples, protecting the environment is an inseparable element of their cultural identity and a sacred duty to their ancestral domains. We call attention to how the dominant global transition project creates new forms of pressures that sustain the pervasive political ecology of fear. By interrogating the strategies by which the state and corporate entities deploy "transition" tactics, we highlight the mechanisms that suppress dissent. We posit that the resistance of Indigenous guardians represents a pivotal struggle against resource securitisation, ultimately determining whether a truly equitable socio-ecological future or the commodification of our environment and of the transition project will be achieved.