So far at COP my experience has been a mix of many emotions and observations. I spent my first two days at the UN climate change conference within the Blue Zone, where negotiators gather, and nations showcase their sustainability efforts in the pavilion. The opportunities to engage with people operating at the highest levels of the respective governments surrounded me.
There were only a few nations that I was able to visit before going to some panels that interested me. In that short time, I learned various things I’d never otherwise be exposed to: the legal frameworks of climate action in the African Union, the commitments of the UK to the youth clause in current negotiations, and the unique systems of sustainable development tracking being deployed in China. Two of the most impactful experiences that I had were my time attending the UN adaptation and emissions gap reports and my experience being on two panels relating to sustainability in higher education. The first experience featured authors of the UN reports giving overviews of their chapters in the report and discussing the urgency of immediate action. A large focus of this year’s COP is on finance, and mentioned in the adaptation report was that there was a gap of 200-400 billion USD missing in adaptation funding every year from where the world needs to be to meet our goal of keeping global average warming under 1.5 degrees. In stark contrast to this figure, the U.S. delegation spoke proudly in a meeting with students from the U.S. at COP about the 11 billion USD the Biden administration had released for climate adaption worldwide. It’s disheartening to see firsthand the huge gulf between where we are and where we need to be.
This was a common theme that I felt continuing in the two panels that I was fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to appear on. Both panels covered sustainability in higher education and something that I spoke on in both panels was the importance of having universities serve as examples for students to see what sustainability looks like in practice. Because it is a fact that universities, across the U.S. especially, are not where they need to be in terms of progression towards mitigating their contributions to the climate crisis. This looks like decarbonization of campuses, divestment from fossil fuels, and interdisciplinary climate education curriculum to prepare all students for the issue that will define us as a generation. So much of what I am seeing at COP reminds me that solutions will not stem entirely from top-down solutions and international cooperation frameworks, but local action that propels political systems to into action.
I am reminded in my time here that there is still so much work to do, so much that must be accomplished, and so much that stands in the way of the necessary change that must come to pass if we are to have any hope for our futures.
Dylan Steer is a Political Science and Environmental Studies major in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.