Students from Abingdon and three partner schools recently took part in OXCOP, a COP style event organised by MCS and held in the Oxford Town Hall. 11 students worked together to represent their chosen countries, alongside teams from across the county. Teams enjoyed a day of climate debate, mirroring the agenda of COP-30.
One student wrote: “I found the OXCOP experience to be highly beneficial and extremely enjoyable. I got the opportunity to collaborate with peers from all across the OX14 Learning Partnership, developing my leadership skills greatly as I proposed amendments to environmental laws to the group and had to argue why they should be integrated. Overall, I made good friendships and had great fun immersing myself in the life of a COP ambassador.”
Another said “The OXCOP event provided us with a great opportunity to see what it is like at COP climate conferences. We were assigned the nation of Chile and had to represent their interests throughout the conference and work collaboratively with other delegations in order to achieve our collective goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving environmental sustainability worldwide. We also had the pleasure of listening to a talk by Henry Mance, the Financial Times’ chief features writer who has won two British Press Awards, for interviewing and feature-writing, and is the author of the book How to Love Animals and Protect Our Planet. He spoke about the portrayal of climate change in the media and the role of both the media and politicians in responding to the climate crisis. Overall it was a great opportunity to meet with like minded individuals across both the OX14 partnership schools and the wider region and refine both our public speaking skills but also collaboration and teamwork.”
Lastly, one student summed up the day by saying, “Taking part in OXCOP was a really valuable experience. I especially enjoyed collaborating with other students from across the OX14 partnership, as it pushed us together to gain different perspectives and work together towards good policies for our countries. The group discussions as a whole felt genuinely engaging and it was fun to see how we were able to quickly form a productive team despite never having previously met.”
