COP28: Jacob Donmoyer Pre-Conference

  My name is Jacob Donmoyer, and I'm a Junior at Moravian University studying Environmental Science and Chemistry. I'll attend this year's COP in Dubai this upcoming week from November 28th to December 6th. I'll be using this platform to record my daily experiences of this event, and I'm excited to be a part of this historical moment in climate policy history. 

Last year, I was fortunate to take a course at my University where we heavily discussed the topics regarding COP27. Since then, I've been fascinated with someday being a part of this experience. I got an email this past summer granting me the opportunity to participate in COP28, and I hopped on the opportunity. Even though I took a course where we discussed what happened during the COP, I really am going into this conference blind. There are some things that I'm really looking forward to seeing, such as climate finance, transformative technologies for climate action, and finding how governments can adjust to become more climate-capable. 

I plan on going to graduate school for forestry, so learning about the government processes regarding climate change and the technology for climate mitigation has a lot to do with the field I'm pursuing. I hope to gain somewhat of an understanding of how the process of creating policies and international agreements is made. Gaining this understanding of how these processes go will help me be more well-rounded in the field I'm pursuing. 

There are also a lot of speakers that I would like to see at some point, such as Clover Hogan, Jane Goodall, Mike Berners-Lee, and Hamza Yassin. I know I won't be in Dubai for some of their talks, but I plan to keep up with all their presentations and contribute my perspective. I'm particularly excited to hear about Clover Hogan's presentation, considering she is a young activist and a majority of her work is about eco-anxiety. 

This is also my first time going overseas, so I'm sure there will be more cultural differences than what I'm used to. As of right now, I'm a solid 75% excited and 25% nervous, but I can't wait to be a part of this piece of history and keep the readers in the loop about my experiences.