The Center for Environmental and Sustainability Education at Dickinson College in conjunction with the Office of Global Education recently lead a delegation of 15 students to the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 15th Climate Change Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen, Denmark as part of a year-long intensive course on policy development, climate change, and public communication. AAHSE conducted three question and answer conference calls with the students while they were in Copenhagen.  Below are some highlights from the calls followed by the third "Live from Copenhagen Q & A call" available for listening and download. The previous two call recordings are available here.

"Live From Copenhagen" Highlights

Call 1: December 8th, 2009

*What do the COP15 proceedings mean to sustainability in higher education? *|
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Sara Brylinsky**- “I think our main takeaway so far has been that what we see from these negotiations is that…it’s the folks who have done the really trans-disciplinary work, who have really connected to different sectors who are the ones who are at the foremost of the negotiations…and the policies are going to reflect more concerns for longevity planning that links things together…We’re going to see a shift after this COP15 to strategic sustainability planning that really links transportation on campuses to fiscal investments to education itself and we see that a lot with AASHE institutions already.”

What do you think is the single most important thing US campuses can be doing around climate change?
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Jennifer Ramos**– “I think the single most important thing is the incorporation of climate education in the curriculum because believe it or not a lot of students aren’t really aware of climate change…they don’t really understand the implications of the warming planet nor do they understand the political structures that are building policy that will shape our future and that is the most important thing…We will be the leaders making these decisions and we need to be educated properly in order to make the right decisions.

How well are the issues of equity and social justice being addressed at the negotiations?
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Sara Brylinsky**- “NGO’s and country delegations have really mobilized to make sure that conference participants are engaging in peer to peer conversations about social issues; about developing country issues that are not being represented necessarily at the official policy level. And we definitely hear again, both from the youth and developing countries, from gender perspectives, from indigenous peoples, from low-lying islands; we hear those folks doing the most mobilizing here at the conference. Those are the voices that are actually the loudest on the ground floor…And in terms of the types of interaction the people are having it’s the youth voices, it’s those sort of marginalized and the voices that care about the social and equity issues who are providing the best education for one another.

Call 2: December 10th, 2009

How can colleges and universities better engage students who aren’t passionate about environmental studies and/or issues around climate change?
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Kristen Lee**– “I feel that if you give people hands-on experiences it really sticks in their minds…There’s actually a campaign called Hopenhagen… The people of Copenhagen are very engaged and involved in the idea of sustainability…I’ve never seen so many bicyclists in my life; everyone bikes, everyone walks…So the idea of Hopenhagen is just that if you are involved in the community, that builds a social norm. And social norm formation is one of the biggest things in promoting sustainability…Campuses and universities can recreate that on their own campuses…They’re microcosms of the larger world and having those experience available to students is probably one of the most profound effects that an education can have on people.”

What is the higher ed sector outside of the US and Canada doing?
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Sara Brylinsky**– “What we’ve seen at Youth and Future Generations Day is an intense amount of cross-collaboration from both types of college and university students really sharing, trying to learn from the successes of the global South which largely are not, I think being appreciated enough I suppose in the system we’re talking about in the negotiations. For instance the ACUPCC makes a great analogy to carbon markets but…drawing in indigenous people’s religious perspective, women and gender collaborations or summits, a lot of our global South partners have done that environmental justice work, that local community-based perspective work and I think a lot of us in the global North haven’t gone to that level yet…and I think we’re just starting to find the right channels to really learn from our partners in the global South.”

Call 3: December 16, 2009

What type of climate science, policy, sustainability, and development education do you feel would be most useful to other young people who also need to be able to prepare to deal with tomorrow’s issues in this collaborative, trans-disciplinary style?
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Gwynne****Benington**– “I think what would be ideal…would be, we call it at Dickenson a mosaic where you take a series of classes in one semester all geared toward an issue but approaching it from different viewpoints.”

Phillip****Rothrock– “I think one thing that would be interesting…would be to specifically focus on...simulations or more active argumentation as opposed to just researching. I would say it’s very important to have mock battles and force students to take a side and not stand on the sidelines and really engage in model negotiations…And I think it would interesting to do those simulations based off of a previous conference. ”

Is there an experience or moment you’ve witnessed at the negotiations that has really stood out to you as noteworthy?
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Gwynne Benington**- “There are several I could pull from… I think one of the most powerful moments for me here has been…a presentation by Kiribati which is an island nation that is on an average elevation of two meters above sea level so they are facing some of the earliest and most drastic effects of sea level rise…And they gave a presentation…stating to the world ‘We don’t want to become environmental refugees. Please act on this.’ And it feels really right putting a human face on this. I’ve learned about the science for ages and you can read the science out of a textbook and you can read the policy processes out of a textbook but there’s nothing that replaces being here and listening to people whose lives are already being affected. That has been incredibly powerful.”