Cosmovisões originárias para outro fim do mundo: a importância da participação efetiva dos povos indígenas latino-americanos na construção do regime internacional climático

Abstract

Climate change is a reflection of the damage caused by human activities, which ,particularly through the emission of greenhouse gases, have destabilized Nature by threatening its limits. Anthropocentric thought, which would justify the exploitation of Nature by humans for their own benefit, was constructed beginning in Modernity and grounded in rationality. In light of this, we aim to analyze whether the worldviews of Latin American Indigenous peoples are being employed in the construction of the International Climate Regime.According to Enrique Dussel, the colonization of Latin America enabled the emergence of Modernity not merely as a historical period but as a new Eurocentric hegemony of power. Through the thought of Aníbal Quijano, we understand that colonialism facilitated a process of hierarchization in which the white man was regarded as civilized, while other races were deemed barbaric. Within this logic, it became acceptable for the supposedly more civilized culture to impose itself upon those considered uncivilized, a condition that persists through the coloniality of power. The transformation of Indigenous peoples into the “Other” justified ethnocide, erasing cultures and knowledge systems, including the understanding of humanity as an integral part of Nature.Within this framework, Walter Benjamin allows us to recognize that Modernity inaugurated the idea of unrestrained progress, producing victims erased from history by traditional historiography. Since then, an exploitative rationality has become deeply rooted in our thinking, forming the basis for the construction of the capitalist system. As a consequence of the exploitation of natural resources, we now face the climate crisis, further aggravated by our entrapment in ideas formulated within a system that depends on such exploitation. Karl Marx’s theory holds that capitalism survives only through continuous production aimed at the accumulation of wealth by a small segment of society, as well as through consumption and the division of labor, all oriented toward economic growth. Therefore, it inherently sustains inequalities and hierarchies as structural premises.Applied to the reality of the International Climate Regime, the targets and objectives that have been developed have proven insufficient for adaptation and mitigation, as they remain centered on market mechanisms and development paradigms. When more ambitious goals are proposed, they are often not fulfilled by countries and other key actors necessary for transforming the current situation. The knowledge systems of Indigenous peoples, which propose an alternative model of society, are commonly overlooked. Although these peoples currently participate more actively in discussions, their participation cannot yet be considered full, given their limited influence in decision-making processes.For this reason, we propose to “brush history against the grain,” as Benjamin suggests, in order to return to the ancestral knowledge of these peoples regarding Nature, with the aim of forming a new regime that treats their knowledge as valid guidance for directing humanity toward a different future. Since we seek to transform reality through critical reflection upon it, and employ a critical perspective as the foundation of our theoretical framework, Marxist dialectics was used as the analytical basis of the argument. This approach is anchored in decoloniality to establish an emancipatory position, seeking to ensure that the world as we know it is not extinguished by an imposed destructive logic.