By Salama Almahri
UNIVERSITY CITY, SHARJAH – The American University of Sharjah Office of Sustainability organized a series of events and initiatives this semester to bring awareness to the topic of climate change and encourage student participation at the 28th Conference of the Parties.
Interviewed on Sept. 26, Sustainability Coordinator Sahar Ibrahim said one of their main outreach initiatives for COP28 “is the AUS EcoRep program, which is a peer-to-peer education program to improve sustainability and climate literacy among AUS students.”
She added that they do this through students from a variety of majors. The representatives host a meet and greet in each college to answer questions, interact and spread the word about COP28 and its other activities, she stated.
According to Ibrahim, students can also attend the COP28 speaker series where AUS alumni are invited to talk about their careers in sustainability. “We also have the COP28 alumni spotlight, where we aim to get alumni speakers from different colleges at AUS working in the sustainability industry,” she said.
Julia Carlow, the acting head of Sustainability at AUS, said that this semester, students can join the Green Living and Learning Community (GLLC) in the AUS Residence Halls on campus. She added that the GLLC invites AUS professors to present on a specific United Nations Sustainable Development Goal, followed by engaging activities every two weeks.
Sameera Khan, an EcoRep and AUS Environmental Sciences student, said cooking classes were set up in first-year men’s and women’s dorms to promote food security and low-carbon footprint dishes, when interviewed on Sept. 11.
She said the team held a coffee conversation event at Sheraa Hub, on Aug. 29. EcoReps had coffee with students as they explained the significance of COP28 and provided guidance on how to actively participate, she added.
Students can find out more about the events arranged by the AUS Office of Sustainability about COP28 through
https://info.aus.edu/auscop28
