Eight students recently returned to campus after spending two weeks in Baku, Azerbaijan, where they attended the 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29). CC’s delegation was led by Dr. Sarah Hautzinger, Professor of Anthropology, and Myra Jackson, Mindfulness Fellow for Creativity and Innovation.
“I was seeing and learning so much that even though COP is over, I am still thinking about things I heard in a new light,” says Megan O’Brien ’25, an Environmental Studies major with a double minor in Studio Art and Classics. “I went into COP looking for hope. I wanted to be able to put together a plan for myself on how to move forward in the face of the climate crisis. I am not actually sure if I accomplished this, and I don’t think I will until I’ve had some time to really think and reflect about what I have learned. COP reaffirmed my interest in law, and I am confident that I would like to go to law school. Even though the negotiations could be lengthy, it was amazing to see the process and how much work goes into the making of monumental legislation like the Paris Agreement.”
The students who attended COP29 were enrolled in AN380 Community-Based Field Course: COP29 in Azerbaijan. Each student had a different project and they presented on it both before COP29 and again once they returned to campus, to highlight what they learned while in Baku. Each project included one center ring as the primary focus and two side rings as secondary focuses. O’Brien’s project looked at how law shows up at COP and compared sub-national to international governance. She attended talks on art, education, AI, innovation, and design.
“Many talks were referring to issues I have studied in the classroom like rising sea levels, and outside of the classroom like loss of biodiversity,” she says. “I attended quite a few sessions on the role of youth at COP. Across the board these talks cited the importance of education in empowering youth. I truly believe that education can solve so many problems in this world. One topic I found particularly interesting, and new, was the topic of ocean literacy. I have always been very interested in ocean conservation. It was exciting to combine that passion with my interest, or rather my belief, in the power of education.”
O’Brien’s favorite moment, however, was when she and Ella Reese-Clauson ’26 got to meet Washington State Governor Jay Inslee after attending a talk on sub-national action in the US, where the panel was made up of sub-national leaders, including Inslee.
“I really appreciated how generous members of the US delegation were with their time,” says Reese-Clauson. “Throughout the course of the two weeks, members of the team held private briefings with US college students, answering our questions and updating us on the process.”
The CC students agree that it will take them time to process everything they heard. The conference presented a mix of hope and despair, and discussions on past mistakes but also on wins, like what people are doing at the local level. COP29 also inspired the students, showing them they can be the changemakers.
“Before this experience I had never even worn a blazer, and now I picture myself on one of those panels someday, speaking about my experience as an environmental lawyer,” O’Brien says. “Ambitious, I know, but Nate Hultman, the Distinguished Senior Advisor for Climate Ambition at the US Department of State’s, words from a meeting with US State Department have stuck with me: ‘Find your area of expertise, use your skills, act where you can, and don’t give up.’”
Jessica Legaard ’25 says that she wouldn’t have had the same experience at COP29 if it wasn’t for her fellow delegates.
“I am extremely proud of the community we have formed and the relationships that will continue to grow,” she says. “These meaningful relationships blossoming helped me become more confident in myself, my ideas, and building trust. A support system is necessary because of the sheer volume and scale of COP. Without one, it would become lonely and daunting to tackle alone. I would not have had the same engagement in the experience if it weren’t for the seven others in this class, plus two lovely professors.”
It is clear that COP29 had a profound impact on the student delegates, who will take what they learned to make the world a better place.
“I don’t think I will ever be done reflecting or thinking about how this experience has changed me as a person,” Legaard says. “Moving into the final semester of my time at CC, I want to continue the research and work that I have begun during Ethnographers at COP29. Rooting my work as an ‘ethnographer’ has been an exciting challenge and added a creative element into my work. As an Environmental Studies major and English Literature minor, I am accustomed to writing through a critical and analytical framework. Shifting to an anthropological lens has re-sparked my joy for writing and I would love to continue incorporating this way of thinking and writing into future research.”
CC’s delegation left for Azerbaijan immediately following the news that former President Donald Trump had won the 2024 Presidential Election. Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement in 2020; President Joe Biden rejoined in 2021. The students say that Trump’s win was a commonly discussed topic at the conference, with representatives from the U.S. doing their best to maintain hope that the country will remain committed to reducing carbon emissions. At the airport on their way to Baku, Hautzinger wore a US pin on her shirt that said, “We are Still In,” referring to the movement of leaders in the United States who were still dedicated to adhering to the Paris Agreement, despite Trump formally withdrawing the country from it.
“I often got questions about the election when I introduced myself as an American student and observed as party members of the United States worked to maintain and instill a sense of hope as they were badgered with questions about Trump’s win,” says Reese-Clauson, an International Political Economy major and Mathematics minor.
Members of CC’s delegation to the United Nations Climate Change Conference joined a team of COP ethnographers to collaborate through the Youth Environmental Alliance in High Education (YEAH), a network of institutions in the U.S., Australia, Peru, and the U.K. focused on engaging higher education institutions in Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Through this collaboration, students worked to understand how civil societies, organizations, and governments accomplish their shared goal of curbing climate change.
“Our generation will inherit this climate crisis and so, to prevent a sense of off-loading, we need to be involved in these discussions now and build partnerships with those doing climate work today to ensure a smooth transition and to bring innovative new solutions to the table,” Reese-Clauson says. “I also still agree that ethnographers are very necessary at COPs. Particularly at this COP when there were so many social and political dynamics at play that led to an outcome that was, by many standards, so disappointing, we need people in the room who are trained to study those dynamics.”
CC’s delegation approached COP29 as ethnographers, which gave them the opportunity to focus on the real-life impact of the climate crisis and negotiations at COP29. They were extremely active participants throughout the conference. At one session with delegates and college students from the U.S., half of the questions posed were from the CC students. And while there were some upsetting moments, especially when listening to the realities of the climate crisis and its impact on people, they left COP29 with a growing sense of hope for the future.
“It’s easy to get caught up in the grief and frustration of the stories we’re hearing from those on the frontlines of climate change paired with a simultaneous lack of ambition coming from the negotiators,” says Reese-Clauson, who has long been interested in the environment and its implications on social justice. “But it was inspiring to me to see the continued hope and action of some of those same people.”
COP29 was deemed the ‘finance COP,’ with the primary focus of the two weeks being to solidify the New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG). Given this goal, many of the sessions Reese-Clauson attended were centered around climate finance, particularly the needs of developing countries in responding to climate-change-related losses and damages.
“I learned about many of the creative solutions being implemented on the local and subnational levels to ensure that money is getting to the communities that need it most but was frustrated to see a massive disconnect between these solutions and the conclusions of the actual COP,” Reese-Clauson says. “One of my biggest takeaways is that there are almost two conferences happening at the same time: one is the civil society side that feels vaguely hopeful and convention-esque as it shares new innovative solutions and holds productive conversations about meeting various groups’ finance needs and the other is the closed-doored negotiation side where high-level party members negotiate the minute details of text. There is, of course, some overlap but generally it feels like the negotiators are out of touch with what civil society is discussing—through no fault of their own, their schedules are booked late into every night of these two weeks.”
“Our generation will inherit this climate crisis and so, to prevent a sense of off-loading, we need to be involved in these discussions now and build partnerships with those doing climate work today to ensure a smooth transition and to bring innovative new solutions to the table.”
Ella Reese-Clauson ’26
CC’s delegation worked with YEAH on a side event: Youth Capacity-Building at COP29: Mobilizing Intergenerational Partnerships through Higher Education, which took place on Nov. 19, following Youth Day on Nov. 18.
Hautzinger was a moderator for this event, and Haskell and Jamie Harvie ’25 joined three other undergraduate students as panelists.
The side event focused on youth leadership in climate negotiations and actions, as well as whether and how the SDG 4: Education and SDG 17: Partnership for Goals can intersect to help align the efficacy and impact of youth leadership on climate action. The event also discussed where the disconnects are in intergenerational learning and how that can impact climate action.
Haskell realized that attending COP29 shifted her understanding of what intergenerational learning is. She says that prior to the conference, she had always had a one-way conception of intergenerational learning, with a rather negative connotation around it, as it can be easy for young people in climate work to feel frustrated with or resentful of older generations.
“I assumed that intergenerational learning primarily entails youth perspectives being listened to and brought into climate conversation, which is yes, a positive, but in the end, somewhat positioned youth to be used to be a token of hope, a moral backboard,” Haskell wrote in her newsletter, adding that therefore, she hadn’t really taken the time to reflect on what intergenerational learning really is and what it does.
“Intergenerational learning necessitates the act of being seen, truly seen, as collaborators. A partnership. A dialogue rather than a lecture. On both ends of the age spectrum,” she wrote. “But what COP has done for me, is flipped the roles of intergenerational learning- I am here, learning sooo much from older adults who have devoted their life’s work to fighting climate change in one capacity or the other. In no instance have I been surrounded by a higher concentration of older generations doing the work. Not just on the science side, the academic side, but on the solution side. And that has been giving me a reinvigorated semblance of hope and what intergenerational learning is for capacity building.”
“I think it’s valuable for me and for other students to understand the sheer complexity and enormity of what happens at this macro-level in order to frame our actions at the micro-level.”
Jamie Harvie ’25
The focus on local environmental issues and how people are responding to the challenges brought forth by climate change on the ground was a key factor Harvie’s decision to attend COP29 with CC.
“I wanted to see how the decision-making processes around climate change and sustainable land management scale up from the micro-level of farms to the macro-level of international UN conferences,” Harvie says. “I think it’s valuable for me and for other students to understand the sheer complexity and enormity of what happens at this macro-level in order to frame our actions at the micro-level.”
Harvie’s approach to the youth panel was focused on his research, the methods he developed that included intergenerational partnerships, and how CC helped foster those partnerships through its curriculum with the emphasis certain courses place on the practice of responsible community-based research (RCBR) and how other higher education institutions could follow suit.
“The emphasis on RCBR was my main point for how institutions of higher-ed can help students resist paralysis and despair by connecting them with individuals and organizations that are already engaged in material action on the issues they care about the most,” Harvie says. “In doing so, it can show students that change and action is still possible and is still occurring, which can hopefully help to generate their own action.”
CC’s delegation agreed that CC’s classes, specifically the Anthropology Department, prepared students extremely well for COP29.
“CC’s Anthropology Program places a heavy emphasis on teaching students the methods of fieldwork and getting them comfortable with that process,” Harvie says. “That preparation – provided by courses like Cultural Anthropology or Doing Ethnography – was absolutely invaluable for me at COP29. From the outset, I felt much more confident about simply walking up to people, connecting with them, and asking them about issues related to my research.”
This was the first year CC’s delegation arrived in the host country with enough time to explore prior to the start of the conference, which was very special for the students, who got to experience visiting a mud volcano and the Gobustan Rock Art Cultural Landscape. Getting to explore the host city prior to attending COP29 also gave students the opportunity to contextualize Baku at the host of COP29.
“Baku is, for so many reasons, a complicated host city for a COP,” Reese-Clauson says. “Having the chance to tour Baku and learn more about Azerbaijani history provided helpful context into the historical and current geopolitical factors influencing the conference.”
Others agreed, adding that being able to explore Baku prior to COP29 gave them more insight to the conference.
“By far one of the most fascinating narratives to follow at COP29 was that of its host country: how the authoritarian state, heavily reliant on fossil fuels, positioned itself in the context of the world’s largest climate conference,” says Ashley Entwistle ’26, a History and Political Science major with an emphasis in International Relations and an Environmental Studies minor. “Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, in his opening statement at COP29, referred to Azerbaijan’s oil resources as a ‘gift from God.’ We arrived in Baku four days before the conference commenced, allowing us to get our bearings and explore the area. On our second day, we took a trip outside of Baku to the Mud Volcanoes, where we drove past endless plains of oil rigs. At the museum, there was a room dedicated to high-end art pieces depicting these oil rigs: there was this on-going theme of oil as beauty, which was prevalent at places we visited throughout the trip. At COP29, there were over 1,700 fossil fuel lobbyists. The sheer size and presence of the fossil fuel industry played a big role in the negative results that we saw in the outcomes of the conference.”
CC has sent a delegation to the COP conference most years since 2015. Ten students attended COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt in 2022, and eight students attended COP28 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, last year.
This year, eight former delegates to previous COPs received virtual badges to COP29 and hosted local COP-watch parties for members of the CC community on Nov. 15 and 22. The first watch party was co-hosted by Brandeis University and attended by about 25 students, including ones in Baku, at CC, and at Brandeis, giving students from different schools the opportunity to discuss events happening at COP29. Additionally, three students who were part of CC’s delegation to COP28 last year hosted COP29-watch parties every day during the second week of the conference.
“The goal of the watch parties that took place Monday through Friday was to expand the knowledge basis about COP and COP29 specifically to the local CC community,” says Tristan Durocher ’25, an Anthropology major who attended COP28 last year and hosted the watch parties this year. “We wanted to create an environment for people to understand the event, why it is essential, and how they can get involved even if they can’t attend. It was a chance for us to disseminate significant information about the event and its relevance to current politics, advocacy, and social justice. We have had new faces almost every night, and after a short presentation on the event itself, we screened an event relevant to the night’s theme. We ended each night by opening up the space for questions and discussion so that people could gain comfort in understanding what they watched.”
Durocher, who served as the lead delegate for CC at the UN SB60 conference last year, decided to remain involved in CC’s association with the COP because it gives him an opportunity to help distribute information about the event, share his passion for climate justice, and give hope and optimism to what he says is a grave and seemingly insurmountable problem.
“My experiences at COP28 and 29 have illuminated the idea, proposed by Paulo Freire, that only the oppressed can liberate themselves. Though the negotiations can be haunting in the continuation of capitalist and colonial agendas, hearing from people who are doing the work in their communities, locally and globally is something that has had deep reverberations for me.”
Riss Banuelos ’27
“I hope to take my experience presenting, educating, and writing about COP into my future career and believe the work I am doing now will support my future endeavors,” adds Durocher.
“The COP is an incredible and privileged opportunity, and given the opportunity, I was compelled to accept an online badge and continue engaging with the COP,” says Riss Banuelos ’27, who attended COP28 as part of CC’s delegation last year and helped host the watch parties this year. “My experiences at COP28 and 29 have illuminated the idea, proposed by Paulo Freire, that only the oppressed can liberate themselves. Though the negotiations can be haunting in the continuation of capitalist and colonial agendas, hearing from people who are doing the work in their communities, locally and globally is something that has had deep reverberations for me. I’ve felt very fortunate and grateful to engage with the COPs because of this. My online badge this year, has offered me an opportunity to stay informed and inspired with the tensions of despair and hope innate to these conferences and the transnational communities of climate negotiators and activists they involve.”
During the human rights-focused watch party, the hosts showed several press conferences from COP29 with a primary focus on Indigenous and women’s rights. One of the favorites was Indigenous Perspective About Likely COP Outcomes.
Banuelos, Durocher, and Mckenna Ryan ’25, who also attended COP28 and helped to host the local COP29 watch parties, enjoyed being able to share knowledge from COP with their fellow classmates. Ryan and Banuelos continued this engagement by hosting a Talanoa Dialogue with members of CC’s delegation to COP29 once they returned to campus. Talanoa Dialogue is an Asian-Pacific storytelling practice used for conflict resolution that was brought to the United Nations by the Fijian President of COP23. The dialogue was open to all community members of Colorado Springs, with the hope that the COP student delegates, and other attendees, would bring their stories and personal connections in relation to the conference and climate change more broadly.
“Through this Talanoa-inspired process, we aimed to cultivate a learning environment that is both informative and personally meaningful,” Banuelos says. About 20 people attended the Talanoa Dialogue, which Hautzinger says was filled with powerful exchanges, strong words, and genuine questions.
While the delegation was at COP, they hosted a “Live from COP” session, where they broadcasted from Baku to about 25 students from CC, Brandeis University, and Colorado State University. Once they returned the campus, the delegation held a COP29 Roundtable in Tutt Library, with about 35 people in attendance.
“Between the reunion meeting lunch with delegates from Egypt and United Arab Emirates, and the round table discussion in the library with some 40 attendees, I’m so pleased with how this group, having some time on the back end, has been able to create a series of community events,” Hautzinger says. “This is all in the wake of a COP full of disappointments and discontents, so many are feeling activated.”
Check out the blog CC’s student delegates maintained while at COP29 »