Contributed by Sustainability Intern Grace DiTunno
Next month, 11 UConn students will be departing from UConn and flying 11 hours to Antalya, Turkey, to this year’s UN’s Conference of the Parties (COP). UConn began sending students to the conference in 2015, when the landmark Paris Agreement was created. The Paris Agreement was the first widespread international agreement that focused on countries reducing their carbon emissions through nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and setting our goal warming temperature to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. This agreement brought international attention to climate change like never before. At the conference, UConn students will be able to see the climate negotiations that happen between nations and represent UConn and US academia as they speak to fellow students, ambassadors, and advocates.
In this series, I will be highlighting the stories of five COP31 fellows following their journeys before and after COP.
Paige Gregory, a senior Environmental Studies major, Political Science and Climate Science minor on the Master’s of Public Policy track from Virigina Beach, saw the firsthand impacts climate change had on coastal communities while growing up. She highlighted how she worked on banning plastic bags with her city council members and created a rain garden for her Girl Scout Gold Award. She just recently wrapped her summer at the Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments (NVCOG) in Waterbury, CT, working on the USDA-funded expanding urban agriculture project and as research apprentice at UConn’s SUPER Lab. Paige is currently interning at the Office of Sustainability.
As a college student, balancing personal environmental goals while bearing the weight of an anti-climate federal government can feel overwhelming. However, our UConn fellows are having pre-departure meetings to prepare for this experience. In these meetings, the fellows collaborate with faculty a divisors, discussing climate topics and how to be a good ambassador for UConn.
For Paige’s preparation for COP, she is “personally staying up to date on global and federal climate news. The United States government is not attending, so that means that universities, students, and professors who are going are going to be the face of the United States.”
In addition to the conference, fellows have cultural immersion experiences to better understand the life and culture of the host country. Brenny Alcantara, who describes himself as a confident, introspective and very passionate individual with a curiosity for new information, couldn’t describe how eye-opening the experience of Turkey as a whole will be. “To go to a country such as Turkey is an amazing opportunity. Just being able to experience a completely new culture, a different mode of life, for a mere nine days, I think will be very beneficial to my perspective of the world and build on the curiosity that I have.” Meeting residents of the host country and learning their way of life builds cross cultural understandings and lessons all fellows can take back home.
Policy and politics are seen on the global scale at COP, yet small town perspective is sometimes undermined when everyone is focused on the large, influential countries. Ryan Engels, a Political Science student, is a member of the Zoning Commission and Chair of the Sustainability Committee in the small coastal town of Westbrook, Connecticut.
“I saw that not many young people were doing this type of work. I knew that those decisions that were being made by commissions would impact my generation. So, I decided to bring my youth perspective to it.”
When Ryan goes to COP, he is excited to “learn what other communities are doing in the face of climate change,” especially regarding responsible land use and redevelopment.
Samantha Glass, a PhD Candidate in Oceanography, was inspired by a fellow graduate student and former UConn@COP Fellow to apply to COP. When she started graduate school, she thought she wanted to be a research professor, but throughout her time in grad school, her perspective has since evolved. “I realized that I wanted all the signs that we have about climate change to have the ability to impact the policy that gets made.”
While the science and policy sides of COP are constantly highlighted, business is another factor at play. Take Megan Romansky, a second-year master’s student in Applied Resource Economics, who has an expansive background in welfare, environmental justice, and energy. “I really care about advancing economic growth while keeping it clean and equitable,” she said. “I can’t wait to step outside my comfort zone.”
While all of the fellows are excited for this life-changing experience, many of them are approaching COP with a critical, but open mindset.
Brenny mentioned the unfortunate truth of these conferences. “We are on COP31, and the world is still burning.” While the famous 2015 Paris Agreement is still in action, countries are not reducing their emission to the level that is needed, and climate has become a backburner issue for many countries. Both Samantha and Megan agreed that they are coming to COP with “no expectations” to be able to fully absorb other people’s and countries‘ perspectives. As Ryan mentioned, he is there is to “learn what other communities are doing.”
As our fellows continue to prepare to be UConn’s and the United States’ global ambassadors, the rest of us back home can learn from the fellows by following along. We can be active learners by following news developments from the negotiations and hearing from the fellows at the Climate Change Cafe on December 2nd hosted by UConn’s Office of Sustainability. As mentioned before, a follow-up story will be written here with the same five fellows, giving us a firsthand account of what it was like to be a UConn@COP fellow.
Kelechi Uzobuife, a freshman SOI who is a PNB major involved in Stem Plus and the Pre-Med Society, describes her job as “promoting environmental success for residence halls and for the UConn community”. As an SOI for Northwest residence hall, she reflects on the impact she’s had on her residents. “Being able to already have an influence on some of the people in our residence halls and teaching them different things about sustainability through our events is such a great way to push that agenda of creating a cleaner space overall. Recently we have been giving out recycling bags for RecycleThon and I have seen people using them. That shows that even the little things can make such a difference. When doing the audits the past two weeks I noticed so many contaminants, and after a week I have seen such a huge improvement.” However, her childhood experience engaging with recycling is what drew her to sustainability. Kelechi shared that growing up she and her family would volunteer at a local soup kitchen. To raise money for resources and supplies, she and her family would recycle bottles. This served as a way to help others while also helping the environment. 
want to make sure I’ve included considerations on the impacts of minority populations and not just white ones. Our SOI activities are already rooted in inclusivity and are open to everybody.” For Judith, the welcoming atmosphere she fosters at her SOI events reflects how her identity informs the way she approaches her role. Judith explains her approach to the sustainability field as, “I think as a Black person you come by with an entirely different perspective. In the sustainability environmental field there isn’t a lot of Black or minority representation. So, you know that you’re going to be one of a few Black people in a white dominated space. I make sure that I am putting my best foot forward to make an impact and make significant decisions in what I do every day.” However, Judith is among many of our interns who consider their identity as a key factor to their perspective in the sustainability field. 
Emily Rodriguez, a sophomore SOI studying English on the Secondary English Education track who is an active member of Her Campus and an Ignite Fellow with Teach for America, further emphasizes the influences that her identity has on her perspective in sustainability and her goals as an SOI. As an Afro Latina, Emily shares, “…I have a goal, especially this semester, to teach others how people in marginalized areas are greatly impacted by climate issues… I live in New Britain, Connecticut, which is a marginalized city and is often impacted for extensive periods of time when there are severe weather conditions because of historic redlining and lower-quality housing. As we’ve had recent snowstorms and the upcoming months tend to expect a lot of rain, I want to educate others on the direct impact that it has on people living in underrepresented communities and who have limited resources in weather disasters. So, when taking on projects, I aim to focus on how I can represent students who look like me and come from underrepresented areas that are often overlooked in how they’re impacted by climate change and global warming”. 
As someone who has embarked on many opportunities while at UConn as a Real-Estate and Urban Economics major, an active member of the UConn Consulting Group, Global Business Ambassadors, and an alumni of both the COP30 Fellowship and the Business Connections Learning Community, Aminieli has acquired a profound amount of wisdom, perspective, and skill in the sustainability field and in career development. These skills have helped him grow into a leader who has fostered innovation at the Office of Sustainability. Reflecting on one of his most meaningful contributions, Aminieli explains, “My first year the most common issues I talked about was the jargon and language we use in sustainability. When we use jargon, it might not be as accessible or relatable to people, even if the topics are relevant to certain demographics.” Aminieli’s advocacy for accessible language brought an overlooked disparity in the environmental field to light. As an African American and Tanzania East African, Aminieli’s roots growing up in both the north and south of the United States as well as living in Tanzania developed a different lens that challenged him to consider disparities when tackling sustainability.