I spent the morning watching the opening ceremony for COP23. There were performances by youth from the International School of Bonn and Fiji setting the stage for the next two weeks. The song by the schoolkids was “We Are An Island” with the theme that we are all an island needing to work together. The […]
Ian and I arrived Saturday evening via planes, trains, and zero automobiles. Germany has implemented an efficient public transport system – hooray for lower carbon transportation – albeit a bit chaotic for the non-German speaking Americans. Our travel experience from Dusseldorf Airport to Bonn, Germany should have been easy, but the language barrier and jet […]
Wow, it feels amazing to finally be here. It was a long journey, and we had a bit of a stressful train ride. It’s a bit hard adjusting to a country where none of the signs are in English and very few people speak it. Fortunately, the food here so far has been amazing, and […]
Today is the day! COP23 begins, and our five delegates attending the first week of negotiations – along with 196 world leaders – arrived in Bonn this past weekend. Over the next two weeks, negotiations will focus in on the Paris Agreement and what it looks like to meet carbon emission reduction targets, support developing […]
“Education is a secret weapon in fighting climate change.” That is an approximation of a quote I recently heard. The speaker was referring to the long term effort that is needed to combat and adapt to climate change and the role education can play in supporting the efforts of the current and next generations of […]
As I prepare to travel to Bonn for the COP23 Climate Summit, there are a lot of things that I am left to think about. The biggest one for me right now is figuring out what I want to learn while I am there. As a youth figure, I want to bring a new perspective […]
Minnesota, my home state, has traditionally had four well-defined seasons: a short but beautiful spring, a hot and stormy summer, an autumn with picturesque trees turning red and gold under crisp blue skies, and a slide into a long, frigid, snowy winter. Minnesotans embrace the outdoors – boating and fishing on summer lakes and rivers […]
I’m getting both excited and nervous about COP23 in Bonn. At COP21 in Paris in 2015, there was huge suspense over whether the world would finally come together and commit to global climate action. When the deal was reached in overtime, the attendees were elated. It was a thrill to be there; strangers were crying […]
It’s an honor to attend COP23 in Bonn, Germany as a member of the University of Minnesota’s official delegation and as a member of the multi-sector Climate Generation delegation. At the University, we have official “observer” status for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC, as a research institution. This means we […]
As I think about getting ready to head to Bonn – I wish I could say “as I get ready” as I’m writing this, but that hasn’t quite happened yet – I am compiling a mental list of the state and local level actions that are happening on climate change. I’d like to be able […]