By Maisha Morshed — Undergraduate student, Mathematics of Information, Faculty of Science, UBC COP30 Delegate, UBC Sustainability Ambassador
What does a math student from Bangladesh have to do with United Nations Climate Change Conference in Brazil? A year ago, even I wouldn’t have known how to answer that.
Today, as a COP30 delegate representing UBC while coming from one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations, I’ve realized something important:
The climate crisis isn’t only an environmental issue. It is also a representation issue.
And women’s stories, especially from the Global South, are the ones most often missing. At every single roundtable, seminar, or council I’ve joined, I’ve been the only Bangladeshi female from North America.
When Day 11 Hit Hard
During the COP30 day 11 Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) negotiations, the Gender Action Plan (GAP) was reviewed line by line.
The same phrases kept echoing through the room:
- “women remain underrepresented”
- “lack of sex-disaggregated data”
- “financing gaps in women-led adaptation”
- “frontline communities not adequately consulted”
To many delegates, these were policy gaps. But to me, someone identifying as a Bangladeshi woman from the home of the Sundarbans (largest mangrove in the world) and communities living on the edge of survival, these weren’t phrases.
They were people.
They were my country.
From the Sundarbans to the Jane Goodall Institute
I’m the first Bangladeshi Youth Advisory Council member at the Jane Goodall Institute of Canada. And as an international student in North America, I feel a constant responsibility to carry the stories of the Global South into spaces where they’re rarely told, or rarely understood.
Back home, our delegates are often senior professionals presenting charts, maps, and economic assessments.
But behind every number is a woman rebuilding her life after a cyclone.
Behind every graph is a mother walking kilometres for drinkable water.
Behind every policy brief is a widow navigating “tiger widow” stigma after her husband was killed by a tiger in the Sundarbans.
Unfortunately, nobody talks about them.
Climate data is necessary.
But climate empathy is impossible without stories.
And right now, Bangladesh doesn’t have a Climate Youth Advisory Council or a national platform for community-led storytelling. When it comes to women leadership, female voices are almost non-existent.
Decisions get made about us, often without us.
Why Youth Matter: Especially at UBC
At UBC, I see students building climate solutions in labs, classrooms, clubs, and hackathons. Our campus is overflowing with innovation and compassion. But what’s often missing, especially among international and BIPOC students, is confidence. We feel pressure to blend in: to soften our accents, dim our cultural identities, and detach from our origins.
But here’s the truth I’m telling:
When you fade your identity, you also fade your impact.
If racialized youth remain silent about our lived experiences, we cannot expect climate policies to reflect our realities.
This is why at UBC’s Negotiation to Innovation: Advancing Climate Action Through Research and Learning on November 12, I joined the opening plenary and said:
“You don’t have to be an expert to speak up. Speak up with whatever you have. Your lived experiences with climate definitely matters.”
Youth are natural connectors. We bridge disciplines with cultures and experiences. But that only matters when we treat our stories as evidence, not as footnotes.
Because policy and data are meaningless without stories. And stories are only better reflected when youth engagement is ensured.
UBC Is Creating Space for Youth Voices and We Must Step Into It
The UBC Sustainability Hub Sustainability Ambassadors Program is a platform that empowers students to lead, question, create, and challenge norms. It aligns with UBC’s long-term vision for Transformative Learning: the belief that students can shape systems, not just sit inside them.
I know international and BIPOC students often live in a state of duality in North America—balancing who we are with who we’re expected to be. But I believe the truest form of courage is showing up exactly as you are.
And that’s what I did.
As a Bangladeshi Muslim hijabi woman, standing on an international stage, carrying the women of Sundarbans in my voice.
Maisha Morshed (she/her), Undergraduate student, Mathematics of Information, Faculty of Science
Maisha is a Bangladeshi Karen McKellin International Leader of Tomorrow Scholar pursuing a degree in Mathematics of Information at UBC. She is the first Bangladeshi-born Youth Advisory Council Member at the Jane Goodall Institute of Canada and the founder of InfrastructHER, a venture partnered with Innovation UBC that works to redefine Canadian infrastructure while amplifying BIPOC voices. As a UBC Sustainability Ambassador, she advocates for environmental justice and inclusive city design. Passionate about the intersection of culture and data, Maisha blends her Bangladeshi identity with numerical analysis to address pressing social and environmental issues.
Image credit: Mangrove Forest Katka Sundarban National Park Bangladesh (Hiroki Ogawa)