Bringing COP30 from Brazil into Penn classrooms

From the 30th session of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as COP30, in Belém, Brazil, Bill Burke-White stepped out of a session taking place in a repurposed airport building to hold up his phone and Zoom with his students.

Fresh from a meeting about the global stocktake, a tool to assess the progress of climate change efforts under the Paris Agreement, the Penn Carey Law professor wasn’t going to let the global event stop him from holding his Law of International Climate Change class at its usual time—and sharing what he was seeing. It was time for a virtual field trip.

Walking across a mile-long tent, Burke-White spoke about his expectations for COP30 and his takeaway that China had a much bigger presence there than at COP29. He pointed out the pavilions for different countries and topics, such as forests, atomic energy, and higher education—places where non-governmental attendees could have a voice while representatives of countries negotiated on actions to address the climate crisis. “It’s a little bit like a world’s fair,” he said.

“It is such an important yearly checkpoint for the international climate community, and to see it was really exciting,” says third-year law student Molly Reed. Seeing the halls of COP30 through Zoom, she was struck by the business presence, noting that Chevron and Exxon had pavilions.

Reed is also taking Energy Law and Climate Change with Ken Kulak, an adjunct professor of law and Kleinman Center for Energy Policy advisory board member, who attended the second week of COP30. Since the professors couldn’t bring their students to COP30, they brought COP30 to their students, through both this Zoom field trip and virtual briefings from Brazil.

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In a briefing Nov. 14, Burke-White discussed priorities for Brazil’s COP presidency, differences from previous COPs, and climate finance. On the last day of COP30 a week later, Kulak discussed uncertainty at the time over a final text proposed by the COP president—called the Global Mutirão—and negotiations relating to carbon markets.

“We thought it would be a great opportunity to combine our classes to provide ‘on the ground’ perspective and an opportunity for the students to learn more details and ask questions about how the COP process was unfolding,” Kulak says.

This provided an opportunity for students to see topics they learned about in the classroom put into practice. For example, Burke-White’s syllabus includes the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, COP process and negotiations, the Paris Agreement, climate funds, and adaptation plans from different countries.

“My biggest hope is that they [his students] leave with a passion to go do something about one of the biggest challenges humanity faces,” says Burke-White. The Law School, he says, introduces an incredible skillset, and students can get involved in negotiations, climate finance, or impact litigation.

Burke-White is also allowing students to write policy digests about COP30 for the Kleinman Center in lieu of a standard term paper. Reed is writing hers on Indigenous voices in the climate movement, and she interviewed Indigenous activists from America, the Middle East, and Oceania who attended COP30.

Third-year law student Cristina Bermudez is working on a policy digest about how local ownership of renewable energy projects impacts climate finance and allocation of resources. Mauricio Rodas, former mayor of Quito, Ecuador, and a Penn Institute for Urban Research visiting fellow, had come to class to talk about the importance of climate financing for cities.

Bermudez is also getting an MBA from the Wharton School and says she has found Burke-White’s class helpful in figuring out how to marry her legal and financial academic interests.

Read more from the Kleinman Center about takeaways from Penn researchers about COP30.