Students 'anxious but hopeful' at mock COP30 talks

BBC

As the COP30 climate change meeting in Brazil comes to a close, students at the University of Leicester have held their own climate talks.

Students played the roles of different countries, gave speeches, and "negotiated" with one another to strike international deals at the "Mock COP" conference held on Wednesday.

Mohammed Siddiqui, a PhD student in engineering and chair of the student union's sustainability council, said it allowed participants to step into the shoes of world leaders.

"As our generation is going to inherit the next era of decision-making, governance... we want to ensure we have a planet we can sustain but future generations can sustain as well," he said.

Human geography student Andrew Alvedro, who chose to represent Spain, said there is an "air of anxiety" among young people, but also "a sense of disillusionment."

"When I said to some of my friends I was going to an event like this, they said 'what's COP?' - that's a bit concerning," he said.

"I think that kind of shows some of us are just sticking our heads in the ground."

He added he is "cautiously optimistic" about progress in tackling climate change.

"We know the science, we have the technology to deal with this crisis and yet instead of dealing with it, we're going in loops and circles," he said.

"We need to sort out the politics because the science has already worked itself out."

This year marks a decade since the landmark climate agreement was struck at COP21 in Paris, in which countries pledged to try to restrict the rise in global temperatures to 1.5C.

However, UN Secretary General António Guterres has warned that "overshooting" 1.5C is now inevitable, and the limit was breached in 2024 for a whole year for the first time.

Nour El Imane Boubekeur, who studies French and English law, represented her home country of France at the "Mock COP".

"I'm feeling pretty anxious but also I have some hope in humanity," she said.

"We managed to do big agreements like the Paris agreement of 2015, so I'm still hoping we're not completely lost."

"We can still make some changes but we need to make those changes right now if we don't want to live in a nightmare."

Politics and international relations student and "Australian delegate" James Charlton echoed the feelings of anxiety mixed with hope.

"When we have these discussions about what's going to happen in 20 years, 30 years, 50 years, I end up thinking - that's my life, that's the world that I've got to live in," he said.

"There are so, so many people, my age and younger, who are completely willing to throw themselves into trying to do better."

Patrizia Szewernoha, an exchange student from Germany studying media and communications, said she chose to represent the United Kingdom because she wanted to learn more about the UK's policies.

She said she feels "sad and disappointed" at the actions of some world leaders.

Ahead of COP30, most countries failed to submit updated plans on how they would cut their emissions of planet-warming gases.

"Sometimes it feels like they kind of put those problems on our generation, that it's not going to be a problem for them," Ms Szewernoha said.

Donald Trump has not attended COP30 and the US government said it would not send any high-level officials.

In a speech to the UN in September, the US President called climate change the "greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world".

He also attacked scientific evidence for rising temperatures.

The overwhelming majority of scientists and experts agree that climate change is caused by humans, and is real.

COP30 officially ends on Friday 21 November.