Youth on Climate & Indigenous Futures, hosted by David Lam Center @ Simon Fraser University

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This conversation took place on January 16th, 2025. Thank you to Simon Fraser University’s David Lam Center in British Columbia, Canada for sponsoring this event.

Topics include:

  • Climate change as an existential threat affecting all communities globally
  • Specific impacts of climate change on Indigenous communities in North America and across the Himalayan region
  • Critical examination of COP meetings: their potential opportunities for Indigenous advocacy alongside their limitations and historical failures to produce meaningful change
  • The tension between hope and frustration in international climate governance systems

What I emphasized in the talk:

Climate disasters must be understood through the interconnected lenses of extractive capitalism and settler colonial imperialism, as evidenced by the January 7, 2025 forest fires in California and earthquakes in central Tibet.

China’s mega-dam construction projects in Tibet represent a prime example of this relationship. These dams are designed to control Tibet’s major rivers—waterways that much of Asia depends upon. Beyond their extractive nature, these massive infrastructure projects, built in seismically active regions, increase earthquake frequency and intensity. This poses severe security threats not only to Tibet but to communities throughout the Himalayan regions of Nepal, Bhutan, and India.

These climate disasters are not merely environmental phenomena but direct consequences of extractive practices (whether by private or state-owned industries) that are legalized and imposed by settler colonial and imperial powers. This is precisely why supporting Indigenous anti-colonial, anti-imperial, and anti-capitalist sovereignty movements is crucial to climate justice. These movements, at their core, are about protecting lands and traditional lifeways that inherently foster environmental sustainability.

Click to see event information as advertised by David Lam Center:

January 16, 2025

This presentation is sponsored by SFU’s David Lam Centre.

This public conversation brings Indigenous youths, activists, and scholars working across Nepal, Tibet and Canada to discuss Indigenous futures, climate change and solutions. Speakers ground the stakes of their call for action in the non-economic losses and damages in the face of climate disaster. This conversation centres around an article by speaker Dawa T. Lokitsang, “Are Tibetans Indigenous? The Political Stakes and Potentiality of the Translation of Indigeneity” to which speakers respond and discuss to consider Indigenous futures across the globe.

Speaker

Sharana Sherpa, Communication Associate at the Center for Indigenous People’s Research and Development (CIPRED)

Sharana Sherpa is a communication associate at CIPRED from Nepal. She has also actively participated in the International Indigenous Forum on Climate Change (IIFC). Sharana is pursuing a BA in English Literature at Tribhuvan University and recently attended COP 29 in Azerbaijan. Sharana is an advocate and organizer for global Indigenous rights and solutions to climate change.

Dr. Dawa T. Lokyitsang – University of Colorado, Boulder, PhD Anthropology

Dawa Lokyitsang is a Tibetan American political and historical anthropologist. Her scholarship looks at Tibetan agency as an anticolonial effort in response to China’s developing imperial colonialism in Tibet. Her scholarship on Tibetan schools in India historicises the national agency of Tibetans in exile and examines how the preservation of their national and spiritual identity as Tibetans—an identity criminalised and securitised by China within Tibet itself—became grounds for community-building and movement-generating efforts that regularly unsettle China’s settler-colonial consumption of Tibet. Her scholarship on the decolonising agency of Tibetans thus sits at the intersection of developing Asian imperial colonialisms, reactive anticolonial nationalisms, and creative Indigenous sovereign futurism.

Evan Acettola – Simon Fraser University, Undergraduate Student in Sociology

Evan Accettola (he/him) is a proud Métis citizen with deep roots in the Georgian Bay Métis Community. As a Licensed Practical Nurse, Evan brings a unique perspective based on his healthcare experience to discussions surrounding climate change, focusing on the intersection of environmental and human health. Evan is a passionate advocate for Indigenous rights and knowledges and serves as the President of the Métis Nation of Ontario Youth Council. His academic background in sociology, criminology, and Indigenous studies also work to inform his understanding of the profound social and cultural impacts of climate change. Evan attended COP28 and the Student Energy Summit in Dubai and Abu Dhabi last year, which further strengthened his commitment to climate action. With his diverse experiences and dedication, Evan is a powerful voice for climate justice and Indigenous-led solutions.

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