The annual UN Framework Convention on Climate Change conference of the parties (COP30) took place last year against the backdrop of widening gaps between climate commitments and action, mounting pressure on governments to deliver credible pathways toward net-zero, and continued conflict in the Ukraine and parts of the Middle East.

Held in Belém, Brazil, in November 2025, the conference drew tens of thousands of global activists, diplomats, and heads of state, including students, faculty, and staff from across Yale and the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs. These representatives participated in key decision-making and negotiations centered on action in climate finance, environmental justice, grassroots organizing, natural climate solutions, and ecosystem preservation.

“COP30 has racked up an impressive scorecard of real-world climate actions that will also mean stronger economies, more jobs and better lives for many millions,” said Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), during his closing remarks.

After returning from Belém, Jackson students shared their reflections on COP30 and what they learned and achieved through their participation. These students left inspired to continue the climate fight, understanding that climate cooperation is still within reach despite various global challenges.

Sherab Dorji MPP/MEM ’27

I had the opportunity to attend COP30 as part of the Bhutanese delegation where, over two weeks of negotiations, I supported the Royal Government of Bhutan on the just transition and response measures agenda items. I worked closely with delegates across the G77+China and other negotiating groups, tracking negotiations, synthesizing key meeting insights, and supporting coordination with other representatives.

Sitting among these seasoned negotiators was initially daunting, but watching discussions unfold in real time was both frustrating and exhilarating as the stakes became clear. These exchanges revealed to me how ideas of fairness, responsibility, and capability still remain deeply contested in practice. These debates have been featured prominently in many of my classes, particularly in discussions of climate justice and equitable transitions. Watching this theory translate — albeit imperfectly — into action clarified how climate policies distribute costs and benefits across countries and communities, especially for developing and climate-vulnerable nations. It also became evident how painstaking it is to negotiate every word and how much is at stake in even the smallest shifts in language, which made me more careful about separating my personal views from my role in representing my nation.

Admittedly, this was not a perfect experience with a satisfying ending. There were disappointments — such as the adoption of the Global Mutirão plan without any explicit reference to a fossil fuel phaseout — coupled with meaningful wins, like the adoption of the Just Transition Mechanism and the Gender Action Plan — vital mechanisms for advancing a more equitable response to the climate crisis. Reflecting on this experience, I’m reminded that even partial progress matters in this geopolitical moment. COP30 reaffirmed that multilateralism, though imperfect and messy, remains a vital space where committed voices matter and climate action can still prevail.

Bryn Evans MPP/MEM ’27

At COP30, I worked alongside Vanuatu’s Loss and Damage (L&D) negotiating team, supporting efforts to secure legal accountability and financial reparations from Global North countries for their leading role in creating and exacerbating climate harms for the rest of the world. COP30 also included the quinquennial review of the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage (WIM), which will shape how the international legal system responds to unavoidable climate harms over the following half-decade.

Working with Vanuatu’s delegation offered me a first-hand view of how international legal principles and local lived experience intersect in climate negotiations. As a member of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) bloc, Vanuatu negotiators often drew on experiential evidence to support calls for increased L&D finance, underlining their communities’ limits to adaptation and the shortcomings of global mitigation efforts. Since well before the UNFCCC entered the scene, Vanuatu has been a persistent leader in pushing for meaningful climate reparations. Today, that push manifests in advocating for L&D to be recognized as a core pillar of climate action — grounded not in charity but in accountability, equity, and repair. My support for this work involved tracking negotiations text, assisting with legal and policy analysis, and coordinating across thematic areas where L&D intersects with finance and adaptation.

While multilateral climate action was, as usual, stymied by UNFCCC member states with vested interests in maintaining current global patterns of extractivism, I still noted numerous small wins for climate justice at COP30. Negotiators found a landing spot for the WIM review that better codified a yearly “State of L&D” report, which will include valuable applied information for countries considering submitting L&D funding requests. Outside of negotiations, hundreds of side events and pavilion events platformed speakers from historically marginalized communities on topics such as community empowerment and land stewardship. Local Indigenous-led protests — in response to the repeated de-badging of Indigenous and other non-state-affiliated community leaders — also forced repeated conference interruptions, underlining the enduring power of grassroots organizing alongside the international climate bureaucracy.

My experience at COP30 closely reflects my academic interests at the Jackson School, particularly around international climate justice, the role of law and institutions in addressing global inequality, and the fusion of international governance with local community empowerment. I left Belém with a firm conviction that although the multilateral climate governance system deserves continued upkeep, the broader goals of the UNFCCC and Paris Agreement cannot be met without a concerted, parallel push outside of formal negotiating circles. This must be led by Indigenous groups, local governments, non-governmental organizations, and community leaders.

Federico Pérez MPP/MEM ’27

At COP30, I participated in several delegations, including the Amazon Investor Coalition, the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, IFSA, and also in my organization, Selvitas. My focus was on conservation finance and the development constraints that determine whether climate policy can work in the Amazon. Most of my time went into meetings on investment alignment, Indigenous-led initiatives, and the financial architecture needed to make conservation economically rational for local communities.

Before COP30 began, I took part in the inauguration of the Latin America branch of the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation in São Paulo. The event gathered students, entrepreneurs, and institutional partners. I delivered remarks highlighting the role of youth leadership ahead of COP30 and introduced a sequence of the 10 most innovative Latin American environmental entrepreneurs. The event emphasized a point that shaped my entire COP experience: Innovation only scales when paired with stable institutions, predictable rules, and financing structures that match long-term development needs.

At COP30, representing Selvitas, I shared our work on wildlife corridors and community development in rural Colombia. I felt it was important to stress land tenure complexity, fragmented markets, and inconsistent public support as core barriers. With the Amazon Investor Coalition, I worked on engagements between funders and regional organizations, where discussions focused less on abstract climate targets and more on real bottlenecks such as infrastructure gaps, unclear permitting, and the difficulty of generating reliable revenue streams from conservation.

My academic work at Yale sits at the intersection of environmental policy and development economics, so the week provided a clear view of how climate ambition collides with local economic realities. The lesson was straightforward: Without viable development pathways and functioning institutional frameworks, even well-designed conservation tools struggle to produce durable outcomes in the Amazon.