Erin is currently on a placement year as a research and administration assistant at Climate Compatible Growth, a programme funded by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) to support investment in sustainable low-carbon development systems to meet development priorities in the Global South.
As part of her placement, she was given the opportunity to work as a co-organiser for the sessions they were running. This involved opening and closing each session, and creating speaker cards for the week’s events. These sessions addressed important topics including country-specific approaches on how to reduce transport emissions and were delivered by government ministers and experts. All of the talks are available to view online.
Erin described this experience as “inspiring and rewarding” as she had the opportunity to network with leading experts and felt her hard work was recognised at COP and as a young researcher.
She added: “Being in Egypt for COP27 was such an amazing, surreal experience and hosting these events was such an honour I am very grateful for.”
Aside from COP, one of Erin’s main roles is to help collect energy demand data for different countries using a model called MAED (Model for Analysis of Energy Demand). She is also in the process of setting up community groups amongst participants of CCG events to enable connections and encourage people to work together to fight climate change.