These Ontario climate researchers and advocates expect more than talk at COP27 — they want action

Alexandra Ho of Hamilton will be paying close attention to the messaging during COP27, not just while she's in Egypt attending the climate summit, but also after it's over.

The 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as the 27th Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC (COP27), begins Sunday and is set to run until Nov. 18 in Sharm el-Sheikh. The annual conference is meant to spur discussions around the world about addressing climate change.

Ho will be among four delegates from Ontario's University of Waterloo. She's a student in the master's of climate change program and has a background in English literature and psychology.

"I'm really looking forward to attending, particularly to focus this year on the way that communications from the conference are going to be disseminated and coming out, and to really see how the messaging of the conference is being shared," Ho told Craig Norris, host of CBC Kitchener-Waterloo's The Morning Edition this week.

"We're at such a pivotal moment in our collective goal to limit global warming and climate change," she added.

"I think a big piece of why I found this interest in climate change is just thinking about the future and the uncertainty of what we're heading into as young people, what we're going to grow up with, and so taking action, it's a really exciting opportunity to see what's coming next and to have a role in shaping the world that we're going to be living in."

LISTEN | Alexandra Ho on what she hopes to take away from COP27:

Clifford Mushquash is Anishinaabe from Pawgwasheeng (Pays Plat First Nation) on the northshore of Lake Superior and is a master's of public health student at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay.

Mushquash will be attending the conference as well as be facilitating a blanket exercise, which will teach the history of Indigenous people. He's part of a delegation with Kairos, which is made up of 10 churches and religious organizations from across Canada. 

"The land is represented by the blanket and the participants in the exercise represent the Indigenous people, and we walk them through the story of Turtle Island," he told Mary-Jean Cormier, CBC Thunder Bay's Superior Morning host.

"Then we have a conversation at the end in the sharing circle about ways that we can help contribute towards reconciliation and in our own capacities."

Mushquash, who also identifies as a member of the LGBTQ community, hopes to remind people they don't need to come up with new solutions to climate change — they can learn from the past. 

"Maybe we can use some knowledge and ways of doing things that have always been here. Indigenous people across the globe, and particularly on Turtle Island or what we now know as Canada, have been environmental stewards since time immemorial," he said.

"We have lived off the land and occupied it in ways that were sustainable for many generations to come after us. We see the results industrialization and commodification of industry has had on the environment," he added.