The UN Climate Conference of the Parties (COP30) brought 56,000 participants from around the world to Belém, Brazil, last month to negotiate action on the global climate crisis. Five Pomona students, one Scripps College student and two Pomona faculty members were among the attendees.
“The students were unanimous in stating that COP gave them hope that climate issues can be addressed,” says Visiting Professor of Environmental Analysis Thomas McHenry, who accompanied the students to the annual UN climate change conference.
Thanks to the College’s long involvement with UN climate efforts, the students were able to spend time in the Blue Zone—a restricted area for official negotiations—where they attended press conferences, plenary sessions, country and regional reports, and seminars and discussions on a host of climate issues.
The students, selected from a large applicant pool, were supported by a generous gift from Michael Rucker ’89 and Karen Lyon Gibbs ’91, who previously funded students and faculty to attend COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, last year.
Below, students share their experience at COP30. Responses have been edited for length.
Derek Basil-Porter ’25
I attended COP30 to gain insight into how government leaders and corporations plan to advance climate action through finance, infrastructure, technology, and youth involvement. During my time there, I learned about green guarantees, technological developments such as satellite imagery used to track tree coverage, and the importance of strengthening youth leadership development for climate action.
One moment that deeply moved me was hearing the voices of Indigenous communities in Brazil, demonstrating the essential role their leadership plays in shaping climate policy. COP30 sparked my interest in becoming a humanitarian advocate focused on improving people’s lives through equitable urban planning and mobilizing capital for climate solutions. I am incredibly grateful to have represented Pomona College at COP30, and the experience has shaped how I will tackle pressing environmental challenges moving forward.
Aditya Bhargava ’26
I never knew just how accessible the intergovernmental summits that I’d been studying and learning about could be. Being able to witness climate advocates at play and attend climate negotiations at COP30 has truly been a rewarding experience, made possible by Pomona’s access to the Blue Zone.
Fiona Herbold ’26
I am so grateful for the opportunity to attend COP30. I thought it would be many years before I would be able to participate in such high-level climate conversations, so the ability to do so as an undergraduate student was an amazing experience. I learned a great deal about the mechanisms behind global climate negotiations, and I met so many wonderful people doing inspiring climate work. I think the true power of a conference like this is in its coalition-building capacity. It is rare to be in a space where the vast majority of people arrive each day with the same overarching goal. Addressing climate change can feel like a huge issue to tackle, and no one can do it alone. COP serves as a physical space for building climate networks and as a reminder that there are so many groups tackling this issue using a wide range of approaches. Being at COP was very motivating and helped me think through my own place in climate action.
Sydney Tai ’26
Attending COP30 in the backyard of the Amazon Rainforest was affirming, eye-opening and refreshingly non-U.S.-centric. While much focus was often on the formal negotiations of the conference, some of my most meaningful moments came from informal conversations with people working on climate issues from very different perspectives. The discussions I shared with a French macroeconomist, a U.S.-educated Saudi businesswoman, a literature professor from Illinois and my own Claremont Colleges peers taught me how important it is, in a crisis of this scale, to listen and empathize rather than demonize if we want real progress—even when it’s uncomfortable.
I left Belém feeling grateful for the way my public policy analysis and economics major at Pomona has trained me to think across disciplines, especially given how climate finance and economic incentives were central to nearly every conversation. I learned about exciting economic tools such as national debt swapping for clean energy infrastructure and international cap-and-trade but also realized that none of it would be politically feasible without effective communication, trust-building and compromise. Ultimately, COP reinforced my belief that progress hinges not only on mobilizing capital and financial incentives but also on designing the right policies—and putting the right people into power—to implement them.
Annika Weber ’26
I appreciated the opportunity to meet super smart and committed people responding to climate change in different but related ways around the world. Many people were attentive to changing the dominant understanding of the causes and impacts of climate change—being clear that the Amazon is not “nature” but that Indigenous communities who speak hundreds of different languages are fighting for their lives, systems of knowledge, and territorial rights. As a history major, I particularly enjoyed one panel where an urban planner, historian and cartographer came together to talk about how they turn to Amazon forest cities (now and in the past) for inspiration and also how the distribution and density of cities change/d with private control. Without the historian, the urban planner might make very different decisions.
I loved participating in a protest with people my age from around the world. The protest was very focused on food sovereignty and resisting occupation. As someone who has been involved in the climate movement in various ways since middle school, I feel very hopeful about the way young people are communicating about climate change and how the statements youth are making on international platforms have changed (see Greta Thunberg), especially driven by the leadership of women of color globally.