Delegates from Boston College to Attend COP 29

This is the fourth year Boston College is sending an observer-status delegation to COP and the third year that the Schiller Institute is organizing the delegation on the university’s behalf. The selection process began in May with a campus-wide call for applications. The response was huge, with nearly 300 hopefuls submitting to this first round. A Schiller-led committee of eight faculty, staff, and students - many of whom have previously attended a COP as a BC delegate - asked the top candidates to submit multiple essays explaining the impact attending COP would have on their career paths and how they’d carry the lessons learned from the conference forward. Given that the university can only send a limited number of delegates, applicants were also asked to describe how they would contribute to the BC community upon their return. By mid-August, the committee selected the 17 diverse students and faculty who proved a vested interest in various areas of climate change.

“People are looking at it from a law perspective, from an international studies perspective, a global health, a social work perspective. But climate change is central to everyone’s research and academic interests,” says McCarty.

Elizabeth Schwab, a senior International Studies (with a social justice and ethics concentration) and Communication major, became acutely aware of COP as a freshman and continued following it through the many classes she’s taken that have tracked its developments. Her thesis is on how world leaders frame the Paris agreement when communicating to their constituents, and she looks forward to attending sessions surrounding that treaty while attending COP’s first week.

“I applied to be a delegate to COP because I believe climate change profoundly impacts human rights and dignity,” says Schwab. “It’s essential to recognize that addressing climate change is not just a technical challenge. It fundamentally involves protecting the rights and dignity of people around the world.”

Korinna Garfield is a third-year law student attending the second week. Garfield is interested in environmental law and plans to attend panels on air pollution and the implementation of methane pledge – and catch up with the delegation of her former co-workers from her previous job at the Clean Air Task Force.

“Having this type of experience really sets BC apart from other schools,” says Garfield. “When I was considering law schools, I saw that BC law students could go to COP and that cemented for me that BC was the kind of place where I could get real-world exposure to the field of environmental law.”

Praveen Kumar, Associate Professor, Boston College School of Social Work, is one of the faculty leads who will attend COP29 week 2. “When delegates are diverse like the ones we have that are going to Baku, the quality of conversations, exposure to new insights, and rational arguments (and even disagreements!) strengthen everyone's intellect on the issue,” he says.

Kumar, alongside Caitlyn Bolton, Assistant Professor, Lynch School of Education and Human Development, are the instructors of record on Schiller’s one-credit class called SCHI 5010: Forging a Just, Effective Climate Policy in the UN COP Process. In this class, delegates and non-COP-attendees alike have been diving deep into the history of COP and the intricacies of the climate negotiations that take place there through a series of guest lectures from experts in climate-related issues.

The stated focus of COP changes each year to reflect the rapidly evolving situation on the ground. COP29 will emphasize climate finance — how lower income countries can fund transition to lower carbon, and how to help the most affected communities adapt, for example. These initiatives need trillions of dollars, so much of this year’s COP will dig into who should fund this and how. Students prepared for these conversations and more with modules on why COP itself matters, how youth voices can make an impact, and leadership (with guest lecturer US negotiator Catherine Goldberg, herself a ’16 BC grad). They also looked at the nitty gritty of the negotiation process, down to the types of debates that might happen over specific language with articles and agreements.

“We have a couple folks who are specifically very interested in negotiations who are doing some research ahead of time to ensure that they can keep up with where the conversations are as opposed to needing to get up to speed real time in Baku,” says McCarty.
Both Kumar and Bolton, along with student TA Sancia Sehdev, have attended COP in the past, giving students valuable insights to make their experience successful. Kumar has been encouraging students to expand their networks, by meeting not only current major players but also youth attendees like themselves from across the world who will be leaders in this conference in years to come.

“The networks that I have developed over the years at COP have enabled my team, and by extension, Boston College, to demonstrate that we, as a university, are committed to contributing to bringing climate justice to the most marginalized and vulnerable,” says Kumar.
Upon returning home, delegates will bring what they learn at COP to the greater BC community through a large symposium in the spring semester with panels, poster sessions, and a keynote speaker. The symposium will be a “mini COP,” which the Institute put on for the first time after COP28.