Buffett Q&A: Northwestern Students Research Climate Governance & Solutions at COP29
For a fourth year, a delegation of more than a dozen Northwestern students and faculty attended the 29th Conference of Parties (COP29) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Baku, Azerbaijan. The annual climate conference convenes world leaders, policymakers and researchers to confront urgent environmental crises and drive solutions. As delegates to COP29, students engaged in critical discussions about global climate governance.
Supported by the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, Northwestern’s undergraduate and graduate student delegates prepared for COP29 by attending a quarter-long research seminar. Through readings, guest lectures and workshops, the students developed original research projects, which they then carried out at the conference by conducting ethnographic studies, qualitative interviews and direct field research while engaging with experts and activists.
Miguel Angel Bocanegra
PhD Candidate, Department of Learning Sciences, School of Education and Social Policy
Miguel Angel Bocanegra conducts research on Indigenous climate governance. As a scholar of Zapotec language, culture and history, Bocanegra feels it is his calling to support global Indigenous communities. “I've built relationships all over the world with Indigenous folks. Part of my responsibility is to give back to the communities who've given me so much. Reciprocity is important in my scholarship and in my own personal values,” he said.
While at COP29, Bocanegra talked with Indigenous delegates about the intersection of cultural practices and environmental policies, including tensions surrounding global climate laws. “Indigenous groups have to create their own platforms within COP because traditional governance structures don’t align with our collective decision-making processes,” he explained. He noted that many Indigenous leaders feel personally responsible for climate health, advocating to transition away from extractive economic models that prioritize short-term gains over long-term ecological balance.
Returning from COP29, Bocanegra will continue amplifying Indigenous perspectives by forming a new nonprofit called Sovereign Stories of Indigenous Futures, which will focus on developing data infrastructure to support local climate initiatives and reimagine school systems centered in Indigenous knowledge. “We're thinking deeply about how to create data systems that align with Indigenous knowledge systems to investigate how we can engage with the natural world and push towards a more livable future.”
Cate Osborne
Undergraduate; Departments of History, Environmental Policy & Culture and Political Science; Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences
Cate Osborne, who studies loss and damage financing for climate events, focused on how countries can be justly compensated for climate change events. “Loss and damage encompasses loss of cultural heritage that cannot be recovered, loss of land from sea level rise, loss of language from groups that have to relocate. These kinds of changes cannot be recovered by just pouring money into the problem.”
Osborne attended discussions on the economic and cultural ramifications of climate change, experiencing firsthand the emotional stakes involved. “COP29 was more emotional than I expected. I was standing in line with five youths from the Global South who were demanding climate reparations from the Global North. It was a powerful moment that made me feel angry and sad,” Osborne said.
Leaving COP29, Osborne felt a deeper connection to climate justice. “Looking back on COP29, I learned a lot about myself as a researcher and what kind of work I want to pursue. I want to bring respect and passion to my research and connect it to the people I study. I see research as a very involved act, and I want to emphasize the voices of marginalized communities in my future work.”
Danielle Ortiz
PhD Candidate, Department of Political Science, Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences
Danielle Ortiz studies environmental political theory and how marginalized communities mobilize through organizing.”I felt empowered and inspired at COP29. I had the amazing opportunity to learn from community organizers who have dedicated their entire lives to addressing climate change. I want to connect my local organizing to their global movements.”
Ortiz spent much of her time at COP29 observing meetings between grassroots organizations and international policymakers. “To have their voices heard and amplified, marginalized communities have to form coalitions. Tribes and nations are coming together to leverage their collective power and demand that international negotiators combat climate change in the Global South.” Ortiz believes that this strategy will address ecological challenges and improve global governance. “This is truly about bringing diversity of opinion and power into traditionally exclusionary decision-making processes.”
For Ortiz, COP29 reinforced the importance of thinking global while acting local. “A lot of people deal with climate anxiety,” she said. “We can take control by thinking about what we can do locally. It's not just about taking the bus or the train—we should also be engaging in local politics that mirror events like COP29.”
Drawing on the lessons she learned from COP29, she plans to incorporate more case studies of grassroots movements into her dissertation. “I’m interested in how embedded practices can be a form of resistance. When you engage locally, that's a way of combating climate change through connection. If I plant a garden, that's a connection to the environment. If I go and sell that produce at the farmers market, that's a connection to the community. I want to learn from these localized acts to visualize what international climate activism can look like in the future.”
Michelle Lee
PhD Candidate, Department of Sociology, Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences
Michelle Lee’s research focuses on climate displacement through a global governance lens. Lee noted that climate displacement is often overlooked in formal discussions. “Despite the fact that millions of people are already experiencing displacement due to climate change, the topic is not prioritized in high-level negotiations,” she said. “Instead, most of these conversations happen in side events and pavilions, where civil society actors like NGOs and activists work tirelessly to get their voices heard. Climate governance is messy, but having a focal event like COP is essential to bring together all stakeholders,” Lee said.
During COP29, Lee was particularly inspired by youth delegates from displaced backgrounds advocating for greater refugee involvement in climate negotiations and governance, including the formation of a formal refugee constituency. She recalled one particularly moving discussion with a refugee from Afghanistan who described how his refugee camp in Pakistan had been destroyed by flooding. This experience motivated him to research the exposure of refugee settlements to climate risks to counter the lack of data from the government in his master's research. “Hearing directly from individuals who have been impacted adds a lot of nuance and lived experience to these conversations,” Lee said.
Lee left COP29 with a renewed purpose for her research and an expanded sense of community. “I'm interested in migration, climate change and technology, and these are all issues that people from other disciplines are working on as well. COP29 was truly an invaluable opportunity that let me meet with people, observe things and collect data that I otherwise would not be able to access by just doing desk research at Northwestern."
Applications for the fall 2025 research seminar for COP30 will open in early spring quarter. If you’d like to be notified when the application opens, please sign up for the Buffett Institute’s mailing list >>