3:42pmET November 5th: Intro
The past two weeks have been insane, and it wasn’t until now, on my five-hour flight from Chicago to Frankfurt, that I am fully absorbing that I am attending COP26 in Glasgow. It’s incredibly surreal. To be frank, the trip comes at the perfect time. My mental health has been declining, and I need a disruption (like traveling across the pond for COP) to break myself out of the funk. I’m so excited!
9:56pmET November 6th: Welcoming weather
My phone and computer died, so I stayed an extra 30 minutes or so at Glasgow airport to charge them. While I was on the bus to leave the airport and get to City Centre, I heard an extraordinarily familiar and unique voice. Maya and I serendipitously got on the same bus from the airport (I had to yell their name because they almost didn’t get on) and found our way to the Airbnb together in the piercing Scottish wind and rain.
11:58amET November 6th: Preparation
As soon as I got my bearings at our mansion of an Airbnb, I was set on learning everything from the Week 1 crew. I must have asked Sasha dozens of questions about schedules, badges, the conference layout, advice for attending events, good spots for food, and more. Later that night, Neel sat everyone down and walked through a map of the COP like a true professor.
I’m determined to prevent feeling too overwhelmed and to make sure I don’t miss key events. I created a schedule and read up on decisions/news updates from the first week of the conference. Specifically, I’m excited to see the Indigenous Peoples Pavilion and attend events related to climate displacement and migration. The former will be an incredible opportunity to meet and talk to communities at the front lines and learn from them. I also found events like “Intersectionality at the Nexus of Climate, Human Mobility, Loss and Damage: Regional Perspectives” and “Climate-Induced Migration in Pakistan.” I feel so grateful that I get to be at the COP during the Loss and Damage themed day because there are lots of events related to my research on climate displacement.
I‘ve also been thinking a lot about the people excluded or disadvantaged from the process including developing countries and small island states, youth, women, non-binary folk, and indigenous peoples. I doubt Sudan will have a pavilion of its own, but I’m still looking forward to hopefully meeting people from the Sudanese delegation.
6:15amET November 8th: Ready
Here we are, at 6:15am taking our COVID tests and ready to head to our first day of the COP. I kind of have first day of school jitters. To (hopefully) entering a new, sustainable world…
