Highlights from inaugural COP symposium

By Kaley McCarty

Boston College is an official observer organization to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which enables the institution to send a delegation to one of the foremost international meetings on climate change, the Conference of Parties (often simply referred to as COP). COP provides an annual forum for treaty parties to negotiate new goals and review progress toward existing commitments and typically culminates in an agreement released at the close of the conference, perhaps the best known example of which is the Paris Agreement. 

The Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society is proud to administer Ď㽶Đă’s COP programming. On Friday, March 15th, 2024, the Institute hosted its inaugural COP Symposium to highlight and share the experiences of Boston College’s COP28 delegation to Dubai. The half-day event consisted of a student panel, a faculty panel, and multiple exhibits where attendees interacted with delegates directly. The delegation designed the Symposium to be a “mini COP,” providing Ď㽶Đă faculty and students who didn’t travel to Dubai with an opportunity to share in their experiences.

Symposium attendees were welcomed with refreshments and leading up to the official kick-off. To begin, School of Social Work Associate Professor and faculty co-lead of the COP28 delegation Praveen Kumar offered opening remarks covering a brief history of COP’s origins, purpose, and structure. 

“COP conferences are very unlike the usual scientific conferences you may have attended,” he described. “You will find open demonstrations happening, then you will have closed negotiations, and hundreds and hundreds of pavilions [including themed pavilions and country-led pavilions]. The sheer size of the COP conference really shows that it is one of the nodal conferences of climate change. For example, last year’s Dubai COP conference was attended by as many as 97,000 people over two weeks.” 

Boston College’s delegation accounted for twenty of those 97,000 people. 

After his opening remarks, Kumar moderated a conversation with undergraduate student delegates Gabby Levitt, Sancia Sehdev, and Jack Strang, along with law school student delegate Eddie Ward on the , where they shared their experiences as COP28 delegates. The discussion was broad, ranging from descriptions of their favorite moments to reflections on the impacts of the host country on negotiations to connections to their classes at Ď㽶Đă and the work they plan to pursue. To see glimpses into a day in the life of student delegates at COP, and check out the highlight reels for COP Week One and COP Week Two.

Sancia Sehdev highlighted that “a lot of universities sent delegations that primarily comprised faculty members and grad students, whereas Ď㽶Đă really tries to emphasize sending both undergraduate and grad students.” Of the twenty delegates Ď㽶Đă sent to COP28, six were faculty, six were graduate students, and eight were undergraduate students. She added that students should “definitely take this opportunity and run with it because it's very, very hard to find and I think we're very lucky to be here and have access to that.” 

Two hours of open exhibits between the morning and afternoon panels allowed attendees to have conversations with delegates and explore specific topics in more depth. Exhibits included posters about language, health, and just transitions, an interactive sensory exercise based on a , as well as an installation of , a project centering the health and environmental consequences of textile waste. Aftermath was initially funded by a Schiller seed grant and run by Julia DeVoy, Lynch School Associate Dean of Undergraduate Students and Programs and delegate to COP28. 

The language exhibit illustrated the centrality and impact of word choice and particular phrases. For instance, heated debates surrounded whether the COP28 agreement should call for the “phase out” or “phase down” of fossil fuels. Two other posters reflected takeaways from two of COP’s thematic days on health and just transitions. COP28 was the first COP that had a thematic day focused on health. Multiple delegates highlighted the significance of this addition, noting the importance of acknowledging the intersection of health and climate change and underscoring the interest in the subject on Ď㽶Đă's campus. That interest spread beyond the delegation as the health poster was heavily visited during the exhibit portion of the Symposium.

Playing the City Game invited attendees to imagine what their ideal city would look like and how cities could be built in ways that fully engage our senses and incorporate sustainable design principles like biomimicry and biophilic design. 

The event wrapped up with a consisting of Kumar along with Carroll School of Management Professor Gergana Nenkov and Institute Professor of Climate and Society Yi Ming, moderated by Ward, and brimming with laughter, reflection, and takeaways. 

Panelists discussed how successful the COP model is and whether COP28 should be considered a success. Nenkov weighed in, noting that “one of the big wins out of the COP 28 actually came out on day one and this was the operationalization of the so-called Loss and Damage Fund, where a number of countries made initial pledges of money. The idea of this fund is to have high GDP countries contribute money, which would be distributed to low GDP countries which are affected by climate change, even though they have contributed the least to climate change.” Kumar agreed, adding the replenishment of the Green Climate Fund and the explicit acknowledgment of the need to transition away from fossil fuels by 2050 to their list of COP28 wins.

Ming reflected on COP28’s emphasis on the need for a just, equitable transition, stating “I'm a physical climate scientist by training, so I knew about this green transition toward more renewable futures. But one thing that really caught my attention – not just my imagination, but my heart – was this emphasis on this green transition being a just one as well.”  COP28 emphasized the interconnectivity of “all the social, economic, and inequality issues underlying climate issues,” highlighting the need for interdisciplinary solutions and a diversity of perspectives.

Ming went on to recount an event organized by an NGO that highlighted the experiences of female farmers in India using solar panels in their irrigation systems. He described “watching [the women’s] facial expressions, watching the joy, the struggle” and shared that the experience gave him “as a physical scientist, this new dimension in terms of my understanding of the personal struggle or the personal story behind what seems to be a pretty long goal. So I think this is one reason I remain very, very hopeful about the COP process.”

COP29 will take place from November 11-24, 2024 and will be hosted in Baku, Azerbaijan. Interested in being part of Ď㽶Đă’s COP29 delegation? The call for applications will be sent out by the end of the semester. Applications are open to all faculty and non-graduating students. Stay tuned to get involved.

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