Students from CEMS universities simulated the COP28 climate negotiations

The course “Model UNFCCC CEMS Climate Strategy Roleplay” ran for the 15th time within the framework of the CEMS International Management Master’s programme at Corvinus. In the course, students simulated the negotiations of the COP28 conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, with the participation of 108 international students from 8 CEMS partner universities. 

Model UNFCCC CEMS Climate Strategy Roleplay is a unique, innovative course that provides the possibility for students to experience, as active participants, a complex, multilateral negotiation with far-reaching consequences for the future of the planet. The negotiation simulation concluding the course took place this year in Cologne, with 108 students and their teachers from 8 CEMS partner universities. 

During the three-day programme, students took on the roles of delegates of various countries, representing their interests in the negotiations for a new treaty on climate change. The conference included plenary and working group sessions as well as informal negotiations in a realistic setting, allowing students to make use of their knowledge on climate change, the UNFCCC process and negotiation strategies acquired during the course. 

As a result of intense negotiations and compromise-seeking stretching long into the night, by the end of the third day, students were able to come to consensus on the text of the „Cologne Commitment”, which focused on the most important issues in relation climate change: the reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions (mitigation), preparing for the effects of climate change (adaptation), climate finance, market mechanisms to facilitate emission reductions, and questions about the status of climate refugees and loss and damage resulting from global warming. 

This year, students from Corvinus represented Australia, Peru and the Solomon Islands, while two of them took on the highly challenging task of chairing the working group focusing on mitigation.  

The success of the three-day simulation proved that this course, now in its 15th year and always building on the current state of play, is able to prepare the next generation of decision makers to face the complex challenge of tackling climate change. This year’s event was organised by the University of Cologne with the participation of students and teachers from Corvinus University of Budapest, ESADE (Barcelona), Bocconi (Milano), the University of St Gallen, Stockholm School of Economics, NHH (Bergen), and SGH Warsaw School of Economics. At Corvinus, the course is taught by Dr. Ágnes Zsóka and Dr. Anna Széchy.  

Participants of the climate change negotiation simulation from Corvinus were Adrian Josef Amon, Carl Barford, Eva DeSousa, Melanie Haket, Kathrine Hjelmevoll, Annamária Kókai, Bálint Kósa, Dóra Anna Magyar, Nino Santiago. 

Read more about the course, and the sustainability initiatives of the CEMS community currently celebrating its 35th anniversary here.