I head out to Glasgow tonight [October 30] to attend the 26th conference of the parties (signatories) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Convention (UNFCCC). With the pandemic, it has been much more of an ordeal to prepare than usual and with many heads of state attending, including President Biden, security will be extraordinarily tight. But let’s hope that these leaders will make significant progress toward addressing reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, adaptation and resilience to a changing world, and climate finance to help developing nations advance in a low-carbon future.
Hilde Binford, professor of music, will be there as well. Because of the risk ratings, we could not take students this year, but Sam Does (senior environmental science major) and Keegan Schealer (senior environmental economics and policy major) will be joining virtually as delegates, and our Climate Negotiations class will be following events remotely as they are able. Keegan will also be presenting as part of our NSF-funded Youth Environmental Alliance in Higher Education (YEAH) initiative.
Four Moravian alums (that we know of) will also be attending either in person or virtually:
Sarabeth Brockley ’10, environmental science
Chelsea Hill ’21, environmental science
Melissa Morales ’21, environmental science
René Wiesner Brown, PhD ’94 biology/natural resource management)
Tracy Bach, JD, who will be teaching “Environmental Policy” and “Law and the Environment” in spring will be in attendance as will the glaciologist, Dr. Heïdi Svestre, who routinely gives guest lectures for Moravian University and mentored Chelsea in a research project last year.
Besides representing Moravian and YEAH, I will also be representing the Research and Independent NGOs as a steering committee member for this official constituency group of the UNFCCC and the Global Council for Science and the Environment.
As always, we plan to blog at Moravian at UNFCCC.