AI Boom Siphons Billions From Crucial Energy Innovation Funding

By Haley Zaremba - Mar 05, 2026

• Venture capital funding for energy research and development has shrunk for three straight years, with a significant portion of the decline attributed to large non-specialist VC funds shifting their focus to AI startups.
• 
  
• Government spending on energy R&D also dropped globally in 2024 and 2025 due to budget cuts and policy pivots, adding to the financial squeeze on energy innovation.
• 
  
• Despite the overall decline, seven key areas—including next-generation geothermal, nuclear fusion, and carbon dioxide removal—are seeing continued growth in VC funding, indicating a shift in investment priorities toward energy security and competitiveness.
• 
  

AI is a double-edged sword for the energy sector. The rapid integration of large language models into everything from your email account to your toothbrush – no, really – has driven the energy demand of data centers through the roof. Public and private interests are scrambling to plan enough energy production additions to keep up with skyrocketing projections, often at the expense of climate goals. But AI could also provide critical solutions to making all kinds of processes and industries more energy efficient, as well as become a cornerstone of next-gen clean energy tech, thereby potentially becoming a net-positive for energy use in the future. 

At the same time, the AI boom has also driven an explosion of interest in advanced and often low-carbon energy technologies like geothermal and nuclear fusion. But a new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) finds that AI startups may actually be siphoning money away from energy tech startups, at the likely expense of energy innovation, energy security, and both short- and long-term climate goals. 

“After years of growth, energy innovation funding appears to be entering a phase marked by slower growth and shifting priorities,” states the IEA’s The State of Energy Innovation 2026 report. After peaking in 2023, government spending on energy research and development dropped on a global level in 2024 and reduced another 2 percent in 2025 to reach 55 billion worldwide. This is at least partially due to policy pivots and budget cuts, particularly in the European Union and the United States.

Venture capital has also dropped off for energy research and development, shrinking for three years straight according to the IEA. While there is “no single reason for the decline in energy VC funding since 2022,” the report highlights the fact that energy startups had to compete fiercely with AI startups over the course of last year. “The share of VC funding for AI rose to almost 30% in 2025, while the share of energy shrank, and large non-specialist VC funds shifted focus from energy to AI,” the IEA reports. 

This is shockingly bad news in an era when energy innovation is needed more than ever as energy security concerns balloon and the threat of climate change grows ever more urgent. “There's an irony here,” writes Axios. “The AI boom's biggest need — energy — may be getting financially undercut by the boom itself.”

In the fourth quarter of 2025 alone, reported $8 billion in clean energy projects were scrapped in the United States, and just $3 billion worth of new projects announced. “That means the pipeline of new investment is shrinking,” Hannah Hess, associate director of climate and energy at the Rhodium group, told nonpartisan news outlet Semafor last month. “Usually, even when we see quarterly fluctuations, from a zoomed-out view we continue to see sustained momentum. That’s no longer true.”

Related: The U.S. Just Took a Giant Step in The Rare Earth Race With China

This drop in both public and private spending in energy sector R&D is also hugely impacted by the sorry state of the electric vehicles market. The Trump administration’s war on Biden- and Obama-era climate and energy legislation has slashed the electric vehicle market to the bone. Since the countrywide $7,500 federal tax credit was rolled back in September, EV markets have bled out $65 billion on a global scale.

However, the market may already be in the process of correcting itself. Last month, Bloomberg reported that there are early signs of a potential upturn in private equity dealmaking in the clean energy sector after a year of inaction as firms waited out high levels of policy uncertainty. Last year saw a bottoming out of clean energy acquisitions, with a year-on-year contraction of over 50 percent, bringing numbers down to 2013 levels. 

But the landscape for investment is changing, reflecting shifting priorities toward energy security and competitiveness and away from climate efforts. The IEA reports that we can expect continued growth in seven key areas, which may offset some of the decline in EV funding: carbon dioxide removal, critical minerals, next-generation geothermal, low-emissions industrial production, aerospace, nuclear fission and fusion energy. In 2025, these seven areas represented one-third of energy VC funding, a massive surge from 2019, when they represented less than 5 percent. 

By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com 

First Nations Coalition says Indigenous equity key to faster mining approvals in Canada

Amanda Stutt | March 5, 2026 | 

Oil pipeline. Stock image by serikbaib.

Indigenous ownership in major mining and resource projects could help accelerate permitting timelines in Canada while improving economic outcomes for First Nations, according to the First Nations Major Projects Coalition (FNMPC). 

The national non-profit, which represents 186 First Nations across the country, works with Indigenous communities to help them participate in large-scale developments ranging from mining and energy to transmission infrastructure. 

“We’re a capacity service group. We help Nations get to the table,” FNMPC CEO Mark Podlasly said in an interview with MINING.COM the week of the PDAC 2026 global mining convention in Toronto. 

Podlasly is of the Nlaka’pamux Nation (NNTC), whose traditional territory is in the southern interior of British Columbia and extends into the state of Washington. NNTC is actively involved in protecting Nlaka’pamux traditional cultural properties related to the Seattle City Light Hydro Project. 

Coalition origins 

Founded 11 years ago in British Columbia, the Coalition emerged after a group of First Nations missed out on a major investment opportunity tied to a C$5 billion natural gas pipeline project. Eleven Nations had negotiated a 30% equity stake, but when they approached banks for financing they were treated as high-risk borrowers. 

“First Nations went to the bank to finance their equity and discovered they had no collateral,” Podlasly said. “They were offered credit-card level interest rates — 30% or 35%.” 

Unable to secure affordable financing, the Nations lost the investment opportunity — an inflection point that led to the creation of the Coalition to help Indigenous communities overcome structural barriers to capital and commercial participation in resource projects. 

Today the Coalition provides technical support to its members project economics and commodity markets, environmental assessments and regulatory processes. The organization employs about 35 staff across Canada, roughly 70% of whom are Indigenous, including economists, lawyers and finance specialists. 

“You can’t make an informed decision unless you have the information,” Podlasly said. “That’s what we do — technical, regulatory and financial.” 

From consultation to ownership 

For decades, Indigenous participation in major projects largely focused on consultation and impact-benefit agreements. But the Coalition says the landscape is shifting toward direct equity ownership. 

“It’s not nations asking for grants anymore,” Podlasly said. “Nations want to co-invest.” 

Equity participation can give communities a long-term revenue stream while aligning their interests with project developers, Podlasly said. “If you bring a First Nation in as a partner, they bring capital and they bring rights that will have to be addressed anyway.”  

The Coalition has advised on or supported several projects that include Indigenous ownership. 

In Ontario, First Nations have secured about 50% equity stakes in  electricity transmission projects. In British Columbia, multiple Coalition members collectively hold a 10% stake in the Coastal GasLink pipeline, a 670-km natural gas pipeline connecting Dawson Creek to the LNG Canada facility in Kitimat.

Other initiatives include the North Coast transmission line project in northern British Columbia, where First Nations are expected to hold roughly 50% equity, and a 100% Indigenous-owned geothermal project in Fort Nelson, Podlasly said.

The Coalition has also begun advising on mining projects, including an early-stage lithium development in northern Ontario. Some projects listed on the Coalition’s website remain confidential while negotiations are ongoing. 

Source: FNMPC

Partnership and permitting 

As global demand for critical minerals grows and governments move to secure domestic supply chains, Canada has increasingly focused on accelerating project approvals. Federal officials have pledged to shorten timelines for major developments in mining and energy. 

At PDAC this week Energy and Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson said Canada will lead the Group of 20 nations with the fastest permits as the government’s Major Projects Office (MPO) advances projects to production within two years.

The Coalition says Indigenous participation could be key to making that happen. 

“If you have an Indigenous partner with an economic stake who wants the project to succeed, are they going to oppose it?” Podlasly said. “Probably not.” In that sense, equity partnerships can help reduce regulatory delays, Podlasly pointed out.  “Indigenous ownership can actually shorten permitting timelines,” he said. 

But the Coalition also cautions that projects imposed without Indigenous participation could still face strong opposition. 

“If projects are dropped in the way they were done in the past, Nations will fight,” he said. 

Instead, the Coalition advocates what it calls “smart projects” — developments that incorporate Indigenous environmental values, economic participation and community consent. 

“As long as Indigenous environmental and economic interests are built into the project — and the nation wants it — we support it,” Podlasly said. 

National competitiveness 

The Coalition says the conversation around Indigenous participation in major projects has evolved significantly over the past decade. 

“It’s not just an Indigenous issue anymore,” Podlasly said. “It’s about national economic competitiveness.” 

With Canada seeking to develop critical minerals and energy infrastructure in an increasingly uncertain geopolitical environment, collaboration between Indigenous communities, governments and industry will be essential, the Coalition says. 

Indigenous ownership could also reshape the relationship between communities and resource development. 

Rather than being seen solely as stakeholders or rights holders, Podlasly said First Nations can become partners in projects that take place on their territories. 

“Indigenous people are Canadians. We’re going to sink or swim together.” 

The 9th annual First Nations Major Projects Coalition Conference will take place April 29 to May 1 at the Sheraton Centre Toronto. Information is here.  

 

Carbon Credits Helped Power the “100% Clean” Olympic Winter Games

By Irina Slav - Feb 24, 2026

• Enel powered the Winter Olympics with “100% low-carbon electricity,” but relied partly on carbon credits.
• 
  
• Carbon offsets allow companies to claim clean energy use without physically consuming only renewables.
• 
  
• Enel plans €53 billion in investments through 2028, including €20 billion for wind and solar.

The Winter Olympics are over, but their energy supplier, Enel, is rightly proud of the feat it pulled off: 100% low-carbon electricity supply for the games. But there is a twist. That 100% was only possible thanks to one thing: carbon credits.

The energy major reported it was supplying 85 GW of electricity to the Olympics and Paralympics, yet not all of those gigawatts came from wind and solar installations. Some of them did, but the rest came from baseload generation facilities, “cleaned up” with so-called “guarantee of origin” certificates.

Every GO certificate corresponds to 1 MWh of electricity produced from low-carbon sources except nuclear. The electricity itself is not necessarily supplied to the buyer of the certificates. The certificates are there to prove it was generated, theoretically offsetting the high-carbon electricity that the buyer had to use to ensure supply reliability.

Enel this week announced it was going to spend some 53 billion euros in fresh investments between this year and 2028, of which 20 billion was on wind and solar growth. The goal of the company is to add some 15 GW of new capacity, mainly in Europe. It seems Enel would rather generate its own low-carbon electricity than buy certificates—and there is a good reason for this.

Related: Russia's Dark Oil Web Exposed in Major UK Sanctions Escalation

Carbon certificates, or carbon credits, or carbon offsets all amount to the same idea: buying a modern version of a Medieval indulgence to clean up, in the modern case, your energy supply track record. Indeed, the operators of wind and solar installations make good business selling such certificates to other companies, including Big Tech, which, until about last year, was willing to pay anything to such operators to be able to show its investors that almost all of its electricity comes from low-carbon generation, even though that is not, in physical reality, the case.

In addition to wind and solar certificates, there have been a multitude of projects promising to offset a certain amount of emissions through, for example, tree-planting or nature conservation. Carbon offsets were viewed as a promising new market set to grow substantially amid the global transition push—until investigations revealed that there was little substance to the claims made by carbon offsetters.

The revelations made by these investigations cooled the enthusiasm about carbon offsets, tightened oversight and accountability standards, and shrank the offsets market. To add insult to injury, climate activists themselves are against offsets. Their argument is that buying carbon certificates does not lead to actual, physical reduction in the consumption of crude oil and natural gas, and they are absolutely right, which is what makes the analogy with indulgences so accurate.

Just how difficult it is to power everything with just wind and solar—literally, not with certificates—becomes clear from Enel’s very own annual report. In it, the company boasted that as much as 66% of the electricity it generated in 2025 came from low-carbon sources—but half of that was hydropower, 17% was geothermal, and only 10% came from wind and solar. Hydropower is, of course, very low-carbon, but it is rarely in the spotlight, unlike wind and solar, which attract most of the investments and sell most of the certificates, not least because in Europe, there is now a political push against new hydropower and even for the dismantling of existing facilities to restore rivers.

Enel this week said it had struck a deal to acquire 830 MW in wind and solar capacity in the United States. One might argue that buying wind and solar in the United States right now is a bit risky, to put it mildly, but Enel has prioritized expanding specifically its wind and solar asset portfolio. Perhaps this has nothing at all to do with carbon certificates. Perhaps it does have something to do with it. The fact of these certificates, however, is more proof that the vision of a 100% wind and solar grid with some hydro and nuclear for diversity’s sake remains unrealistic.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

 Organizers of the Winter Games made clean energy a priority. Here's how they did it

JENNIFER McDERMOTT

Fri, February 20, 2026 
AP


Song Qiwu, of China, soars through the air during the ski jumping men's large hill individual at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Predazzo, Italy, Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)(ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Teams from the United States, Canada and Switzerland receive their medals following the women's ice hockey gold medal game at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)(ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Olympic fans try curling next to signage for Enel at the fan village, during the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Feb. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/ Jennifer McDermott)(ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Great Britain's Adele Nicoll, right, slides down the track during a two women bobsled training session at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)(ASSOCIATED PRESS)

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — It takes an immense amount of energy to power venues and make snow for the Winter Olympics and, for the 2026 Milan Cortina Games, organizers pledged that virtually all of the electricity would be clean.

The organizing committee said that energy use is where they can make the most meaningful impact, since it has been one of the main drivers of planet-warming emissions at major events. And Italy’s largest electricity company, Enel, guaranteed the supply of entirely certified renewable electricity for event venues.

Here's a look at what that means:
To guarantee 100% renewable energy, Enel bought certificates

The organizing committee said in its sustainability report from September that its Games-time electrical energy would be 100% green, fed by certified renewable sources. In rare cases where temporary power generation is required, hydrotreated vegetable oil would be substituted for traditional diesel fuels, it said.

“This is also an opportunity to contribute to a broader shift — showing athletes, spectators and future host cities that cleaner energy solutions are increasingly viable for events of this scale,” the committee said Friday in a statement to The Associated Press. “We hope the steps taken for these Games can support ongoing progress across major events.”

Enel said it is supplying 85 gigawatt-hours of power for the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. It bought “guarantee of origin” (GO) certificates on the market from renewable energy plants to cover the entire Games’ energy demand.

GO certificates are a European mechanism created in 2001. Each certificate corresponds to 1 megawatt hour of electricity produced using a certified renewable source.
Certificates are a way to prove your energy is green

These certificates are traded on the power market, in negotiations between companies or through brokers.

Once used, they are canceled to prevent the same megawatt hour from being claimed twice. This system is meant to support the development of renewable sources, by helping companies meet their green energy targets.

Enel told the AP in a statement that its commitment to cleanly lighting up the events “translates the values of sustainability and inclusion inherent in the Games into concrete terms, combining technological innovation and environmental protection.”

While many say GOs are vital to promote Earth's decarbonization, the system has its detractors. Matteo Villa, who leads the data lab at the Italian Institute for International Political Studies, said it is a “great way to promote your event,” but it's not making Italy cleaner or more renewable.

The Games can only be as clean, or as sustainable, as the whole of Italy, Villa added.
Enel says it's producing a lot of clean electricity in Italy

Nearly three-quarters of the electricity Enel produced in Italy in 2025 was carbon-free, according to its preliminary full-year operational data. About 50% came from hydropower, followed by 17% geothermal and less than 10% from wind, solar and other renewables. The remainder was mostly from gas-fired power plants.

Many power plants that use water to produce electricity are in northern Italy, where mountains and rivers make for highly productive facilities. But Italy's national grid is still largely reliant on fossil fuels, according country-specific data from the International Energy Agency.

Enel built new primary substations in Livigno and Arabba, so electricity could be distributed throughout the territory. It also built and upgraded distribution infrastructure in the Livigno, Bormio and Cortina areas, which will benefit residents after the Games end.

Enel has a spot in the fan village in Cortina, where events are livestreamed.
Another challenge: emissions from spectators and athletes traveling

Sustainability has been a major focus for the Games, as both the organizers and the International Olympic Committee seek to model how to cut carbon pollution while running a major event. Researchers say the list of locales that could reliably host a Winter Games will shrink substantially in the coming years.

“Every Games we strive to push innovation in sustainability, reduce the overall impact and the carbon footprint,” Julie Duffus, the IOC’s head of sustainability, told the AP Friday. She highlighted the use of clean power, upgrades to the energy system and the way these Games were designed so that most venues would be existing or temporary.

Matteo Di Castelnuovo, a professor of energy economics at the SDA Bocconi School of Management in Milan, said he expects the Olympics will stay committed to clean energy, and that “the challenge lies somewhere else to make them greener.” The thornier issue for Olympic organizers, and for any business, is figuring out how to reduce the emissions they do not have direct control over, notably those stemming from transportation, he added.

The amount of greenhouse gases estimated to be released into the atmosphere as a result of the Games is similar to the emissions of 4 million average-sized, gasoline-fueled cars driving from Paris to Rome, the organizing committee said in its greenhouse gas management strategy. The largest share of the carbon footprint are activities indirectly related to the Games, such as accommodations and spectator travel. Air travel is a significant contributor because burning jet fuel releases carbon dioxide.

Karl Stoss, who chairs the Games’ Future Host Commission, has said they may need to eventually reduce the number of sports, athletes and spectators who attend.

Many skiers, including Team USA members Lindsey Vonn and Mikaela Shiffrin, expressed concern during the Games about climate change accelerating melt of the world’s glaciers.

___

Associated Press writer Colleen Barry and video journalist Brittany Peterson in Milan contributed to this report.

___

AP Winter Olympics coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

___

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

 

Heat from deep underground could help power global clean energy transition

Stanford University

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New technologies developed to extract oil and gas from deep within the Earth have also opened the door to accessing super high temperature heat just about anywhere. These enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) could play a valuable role in the global transition to clean, renewable energy and for powering new data centers by significantly reducing land requirements and infrastructure needs and eliminating the need for other constant sources of electricity, such as coal and nuclear, according to a recent Stanford University study. The research, published in Cell Reports Sustainability, reveals that EGS can significantly reduce the amount of wind, solar, and battery infrastructure needed for a clean, renewable energy transition, while achieving costs similar to systems without EGS.

“EGS is a promising clean, renewable technology that works together with wind, solar, hydro, and batteries to help power the world for all purposes, thereby providing energy security while eliminating energy-related air pollution and global warming at low cost” said study lead author Mark Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and Stanford School of Engineering. The study is the latest in a series of analyses by Jacobson looking at how most of the world’s countries could transition to 100% wind, water, and solar energy.

Unlike conventional geothermal plants limited to volcanic and tectonic-plate-boundary regions with readily-accessible below ground heat, EGS requires drilling three to eight kilometers or nearly two to five miles deep, injecting fluid to crack rocks, then pumping the heated fluid back up to generate electricity.

The Stanford study compared scenarios with and without EGS and found that adding EGS to the renewable energy mix produces substantial infrastructure savings. When EGS provided just 10% of electricity supply, onshore wind capacity needs dropped 15%, solar capacity fell 12%, and battery storage requirements decreased 28%. Total land requirements declined from 0.57% to 0.48% of the countries' combined land area, a difference that could prove especially important for small or densely populated nations, such as Singapore, Gibraltar, Taiwan, and South Korea.

The study found that clean, renewable energy dramatically reduces costs whether or not EGS is included. Both scenarios cut annual energy costs by roughly 60% compared with business-as-usual fossil fuel use. When health and climate costs, such as air pollution-related illnesses and sea level rise, are factored in, total social costs plummet by approximately 90%.

The cost of energy remained similar across all clean, renewable energy scenarios, with or without EGS, suggesting that adding a baseload power source like EGS has minimal impact on overall system costs. This challenges arguments that intermittent renewables require expensive backup power to maintain grid stability. It also suggests that EGS can readily substitute for the current role of coal and nuclear electricity, which is to provide a constant level of electricity – or baseload power – day and night. Further, because EGS provides constant electricity, it may be useful for providing electricity to off-grid data centers, which are growing in number throughout the world.

The transition to all renewable energy would also create millions of jobs. In an all-renewable world with EGS, the study projects 24 million net new long-term positions worldwide, slightly fewer than the 28 million jobs in scenarios with all renewables but no EGS, due to reduced construction needs for wind, solar, and batteries when EGS is used.

The technology faces some uncertainties. EGS costs are still evolving, though the U.S. Department of Energy projects they could drop significantly by 2035. The first major U.S. EGS plant—a 2-gigawatt facility in Utah—was approved only in October 2024.

“Due to improvements in EGS drilling speeds, EGS costs are declining rapidly,” Jacobson said. “These speeds allow EGS projects to be completed quickly, unlike with nuclear, which requires planning-to-operation times of 12 to 23 years worldwide. Also, unlike nuclear, EGS has no risk of weapons proliferation, meltdown, radioactive waste storage leaks, or underground uranium mining lung cancer risk.”

 

 

 

Jacobson is also a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment.

Coauthors of the study also include Daniel Sambor, an undergraduate student in atmosphere and energy operations at Stanford; and Stanford civil and environmental engineering PhD students Yuanbie (Fred) Fan,  Andreas Mühlbauer, and Genevieve DiBari. Funding for the paper provided by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Engineer Research and Development Center.

 

Related:

https://cee.stanford.edu/news/student-spotlight-yuanbei-fred-fa

---

Journal

Cell Reports Sustainability

Article Title

The impact of enhanced geothermal systems on transitioning all energy sectors in 150 countries to 100% clean, renewable energy

Article Publication Date

29-Jan-2026

After COP30, climate projects continue to threaten Indonesia’s Indigenous communities

 

After COP30, climate projects continue to threaten Indonesia’s Indigenous communities

Indigenous communities face land seizures, criminalization, and increased violence

Written byArpan Rachman

Posted 26 January 2026

Protest by Indigenous activists. Photo provided by AMAN. Used with permission.

Indigenous peoples play an important role in the global climate agenda. At the 2025 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30) in Belém, Brazil, their work as forest guardians and protectors of biodiversity was recognized. However, the situation in Indonesia is more complicated. Indigenous communities and their lands often face threats from government-backed climate projects that do not address the real problems. Mega-development projects such as the geothermal plant in Poco Leok, East Nusa Tenggara, the bioenergy project in Merauke, Papua, the dam construction in North Kalimantan, and the Lambo Reservoir in Nagekeo have all put Indigenous lands at risk.

Indonesia is home to an estimated 50 to 70 million Indigenous people. There are over 2,000 groups, with 2,161 recognized Indigenous communities. Most of these communities live on Borneo Island, followed by Sulawesi and Sumatra.

The Indonesian government has set a goal to recognize 1.4 million hectares of customary forests as part of its plan to reduce deforestation at COP30. The Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN), which represents Indigenous communities across Indonesia, welcomed the announcement but said it is only a first step. The government has already received maps for 33.6 million hectares of customary territories, with more than half located in forest areas. Without real involvement from Indigenous communities and solutions to land disputes, recognizing customary forests could remain only a promise and a token political statement.

AMAN secretary-general Rukka Sombolinggi said the number of forest areas should be expanded:

The 1.4 million hectares targeted for 2029 should be seen as a flexible number, given the large potential of customary forests and the ongoing growth of regional policy initiatives. This means the area of customary forests that could be designated is much greater than 1.4 million hectares.

As investments and national projects grow, and climate policies ignore human rights, Indigenous communities face land seizures, criminalization, and increased violence. The government has not improved its recognition or protection of indigenous peoples’ rights, and the situation worsened in 2025.

AMAN reported 135 cases of customary land being taken, resulting in the loss of 3.8 million hectares from 109 Indigenous communities. Besides losing land, 162 indigenous communities also experienced criminalization and violence. These problems are linked to forestry, mining, energy, large plantations, infrastructure projects, and the development of conservation areas and national parks.

Sombolinggi added:

In 2025, 38 million hectares of Indigenous land were taken. Over the previous decade, 11.7 million hectares were seized, averaging 1.1 million hectares per year. This year’s number is three times higher than the average. What we see is moral violence against Indigenous communities. Policies make it easier to take Indigenous land, and violence is becoming more common. Sadly, the government keeps denying this reality, and Indigenous people are being criminalized.

AMAN notes that the government’s current policies could worsen and spread conflicts. For example, the Presidential Regulation on forest areas brings in security forces, leading to more militarization in Indigenous lands. This policy treats Indigenous communities as subjects to be controlled, which could lead to more repression under the excuse of order, development, or strategic projects.

AMAN laments that the Indigenous Peoples Bill has been stalled in parliament for over 10 years.

This law could help end structural discrimination, recognize ancestral rights, and stop the repeated seizure of Indigenous lands. This will demonstrate that state officials are complying with the constitution and address accusations of persistent neglect of Indigenous peoples and their traditional rights, particularly rights to land, customary territories, and natural resources.

This author spoke with Eustobio Rero Renggi, AMAN’s deputy secretary-general for Organizational Affairs, who attended COP30 in Brazil. He shared the following insight:

At COP30, countries rarely discussed the rights of Indigenous peoples. Most progress for these groups took place outside the main talks. One major step was when 11 countries agreed to recognize global tenure rights, signing an agreement that covers land-use rights for 160 million hectares.

Philanthropic groups and some developed countries also pledged $1.8 billion in global funding to support Indigenous peoples. The Indonesian government has promised to restore 1.4 million hectares of customary forests, but this commitment needs more attention since there has been no official progress in recognizing these forests after COP30.Categories

Written byArpan Rachman