12/03/2024
By Brooke Coupal

Sibel Manafova watched her homeland of Azerbaijan transform as nearly 200 countries came together there for the Conference of the Parties (COP29), the annual United Nations climate summit.

“I’ve never seen my country so excited,” says the environmental engineering sophomore.

For two weeks, delegates from each country discussed climate action strategies while negotiating the next steps toward mitigating climate change. Manafova had a front-row seat to the discussions alongside finance senior Ellie Bancroft and applied biology Ph.D. student Brooke Sienkiewicz. The students, who received funding for the trip from the Rist Institute for Sustainability and Energy, were the only delegation from a public university in Massachusetts.

“It was so incredibly inspiring to be around the entire world at COP,” says Bancroft, who also minors in climate change and sustainability. “I've never been in a space quite like that before, where everybody is collectively coming together.”

Since UMass Lowell has observer status for COP, the students got to sit in on high-level negotiations that led to agreements that include developed nations providing at least $300 billion a year to developing countries for climate action by 2035.

Image by Courtesy

“The negotiations were really cool for me to witness, because I’ve never been in a political space before,” says Sienkiewicz, who researches how corals persist in the face of climate change and infectious disease in the lab of Biological Sciences Asst. Prof. Sarah Gignoux-Wolfsohn. “I wanted to explore more of the policy side, because I come from a heavy science background.”

The students networked with other COP attendees, including members from Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey’s team and National Grid. 

“We met with women in strong leadership roles (like Sandy Grace, vice president of U.S. policy and regulatory strategy at National Grid), and that was really inspiring for me,” Bancroft says. “Then to hear them say they were inspired by us too, it was a fantastic conversation to have.”

The students plan to keep in contact with their new connections as they look to bring awareness to climate change through daily conversations and panel discussions, including a recent one with Massachusetts State Rep. Joan Meschino at Alumni Hall.

“We are the future,” Manafova says.