The eyes of the world were on Baku, Azerbaijan in November, as members of the international community gathered for the 2024 UN climate change conference, COP 29. However, one group of Pitt students was already looking ahead to next year’s conference in Brazil.
A Vital Moment for Climate Justice
Associate Professor Marcela González Rivas leads the Social Movements & Climate Justice Capstone course within the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. Capstones allow students to participate in exploratory research and apply their expertise to address real-world policy problems, translating the knowledge and skills they have gained in their programs into practice.
González Rivas, an expert on issues including sustainable development and water governance, developed this semester’s course for students to partner with local organizations in Brazil ahead of COP 30.
“I’ve been following COP for a while,” she shared. “There are a lot of criticisms about the lack of accountability and participation of local voices and civil society and advocacy organizations. I thought this would be a great opportunity to learn about climate justice organizations at the local level – the extent to which they’re going to have access to and participate in such a high-profile global conference and planning.”
The COP conference is an annual meeting of countries that are parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and serves as the primary forum for delegates from nearly every nation to assess progress, share updates, and commit to new actions aimed at mitigating climate change and adapting to its impacts. The 30th meeting will be held in November 2025 in the northern Brazilian city of Belém do Pará, the capital city of the state of Pará in the Amazon region and a vital port city along the Amazon River.
Partnership Bridges Theory and Practice
The students in this semester’s capstone partnered with The Amazon Youth Cooperation for Sustainable Development (COJOVEM). A civil society organization based in Pará committed to guaranteeing the socio-environmental rights of Amazonian youth through advocacy, research, and training, COJOVEM has been an active participant in both national and international climate conversations since its foundation in 2020.
“There has been a real disconnect between how the policies at international forums are made and what implications were locally,” González Rivas explained. “At COJOVEM, they already belong to a lot of networks—they have good connections and relationships with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with whom they will be lobbying. It’s really a question of how we can partner, how we can elevate their demands and their work within this window of opportunity when a lot of people are reading about and paying attention to what’s happening at COP.”
The eight students in the course split into three working groups, meeting regularly with COJOVEM Director of Amazon Youth Cooperation Projects for Sustainable Development Karla Giovanna Braga through video calls and email correspondence. At their last meeting of the semester on December 2nd, the teams presented projects including policy briefs and flyers for the group to use during their lobbying activities and a marketing and communications strategy to help increase awareness in the community.
Second-year student Amanda Zaner (MID ’25) described her team’s work researching the impacts of climate change on the mental and physical health of youth in the Amazon, as well as how education plays a role in withstanding these often-significant impacts.
“We worked on drafting a policy brief showcasing not only the effects of climate change on youth in the legal Amazon, but also reasons local government should invest more in youth-led activism and organizations,” she shared. “The data shows that efforts to mitigate climate change will hopefully curb the physical health impacts for youth, but they do less to address the mental health impacts of existing with climate anxiety and an unknown future.”
Braga was thrilled with the students’ work, noting that many of the materials would be useful as she prepares for the State of Pará Forum on Climate Change and Adaptation later this month. Another piece, a flyer addressing youth-sensitive public policies in the Legal Amazon, is already being prepared for translation and distribution throughout the community.
Laura Hagy (MID ‘25) spoke highly of the experience and the chance it gave to complement her other coursework here at Pitt.
"I think capstone projects like this are an incredibly important part of our education. Having the opportunity to apply what we’ve learned in the classroom by partnering with an NGO currently doing the work helps us better understand the material we are studying… I learned so much from this project and am excited to see how COVOJEM uses the work we've done.”
Looking Ahead to 2025
González Rivas plans to lead this capstone with a new group of students in the fall and discussed possible summer internships for those interested in continuing their work after the school year ends. For now, the team from Pitt is hopeful about the impact their work will have elevating local voices ahead of next year’s conference.
“‘For me, it’s really important in doing capstones to know what our place is. What can we do as an American university, and because of that, what possibilities do we have to elevate the voices of others without overstepping? Many policymakers at the global level think of the Amazon in this abstract sense, but there are a lot of people, a lot of urban areas… those people’s voices need to be heard.”