When boarding the last plane, almost everyone in the line held the same items. A backpack stuffed to the brim, a reusable water bottle, and some sort of camera. This was just one of the context clues, alongside environmental chatter, that made me realize the majority of the passengers were also on their way to COP29.

Every few minutes when analyzing those around me I would hear a new language I didn’t recognize, or a vocabulary word I didn’t know. Right away I began to understand how educating my time in Baku was going to be. In my seat, I was surrounded by other delegates that had made the trek to advocate for our planet. But at the same time, 20 rows ahead of me, there were people who had also traveled across the world with only one thing in mind: money. Dressed in pristine suits that looked as if they were just dry cleaned, blank faced, all at 3am. No one, no matter how rich, wants to sit through a long flight in the middle of the night in black tie attire.

This made me start to reflect on the lives of financial tycoons, and ponder how in good conscience could they be doing the work they do.

Before I could even come to a conclusion, we had landed. Upon deplaning, there was a line of people holding signs with names on them. These names happened to be those in suits sitting in first class, who were swept away by their entourage even faster than I could get my bag from the overhead bins.

After making the journey to Baku, we still had a few hours of bus and taxi rides to get to the place we were staying. Once I arrived, I knew I needed to wash off the 20 hours of travel so immediately unpacked and got into the shower. When I turned the water on, it was ice cold. Not chilly, room temp, or even just cold — it was frigid. When standing there, trying to find the perfect balance between how much I had to be in the water to get all of the soap off without getting a brain freeze, I kept thinking about the guys on the plane. I wondered if the shower they were taking at their 5-star hotels had hot water. The thought tortured me. Being able to travel across the world to experience this, no matter the water temperature, is an extreme privilege that I have. I am going to make it my goal to remind myself everyday how incredibly lucky I am to be here, and to make sure to reflect as much as I can.

While I don’t think that the fossil fuel business people are taking a second to think about the work, that makes me think it is all the more important. This week I hope to spend more time around the businessman working in the fossil fuel industry, and to give them something to reflect about.

Lucia is a Climate Generation Window Into COP delegate for COP29. To learn more, we encourage you to meet the full delegation, support our delegates, and subscribe to the Window Into COP digest.

I am Lucia Everist, a recent highschool graduate from the Twin Cities Metro area. I am extremely passionate about fighting for policy change to combat the climate crisis, and tend to focus on bills related to fossil fuel divestment and climate justice. My work with Climate Generation began last year as a Youth Environmental Activist (YEA!) leader, and I cannot wait to continue my work with the organization at COP this coming fall. I hope to use this experience to share my voice as a youth activist and to spread the message to others about the importance of younger generations being involved in the policy process.

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The Different Paths to COP29