UNU Jogja Student Wins Best Country Award at Airlangga International Climate Diplomacy 2025

Surabaya, Indonesia — M. Dafa Dwi Andika, a student of the English Education Department at Universitas Nahdlatul Ulama (UNU) Jogja, earned the Best Country Award at the 2025 Airlangga International Climate Diplomacy (AICD), an international climate diplomacy forum attended by university students from various countries. This award is one of the highest recognitions given in the event.

In this program, which adopts the negotiation mechanism of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Dafa served as the delegate of Brazil. Throughout the conference, he carried out a wide range of diplomatic duties, from drafting and submitting a position paper, delivering speeches, debating and negotiating policy, to actively participating in moderated and unmoderated caucuses. Dafa also contributed as part of the team responsible for formulating the Resolution Paper agreed upon by all country delegates.

Raising the major issue of climate injustice, Dafa emphasized that developing and low-income countries continue to suffer the greatest impacts, despite most global emissions coming from developed nations. He asserted that developed countries must acknowledge their historical responsibilities and provide concrete support, avoiding the repeated failures of commitments seen in previous COP conferences.

His arguments highlighted that the root causes of climate change stem from human activities, and therefore global solutions must be grounded in climate justice with strong enforcement mechanisms. Together with other delegates, Dafa brought forward five key proposals that became the highlights of the negotiation:

1. Compliance Review Body — a mechanism to assess countries’ compliance with their NDCs.
    
2. Rebalancing Climate Finance — allocating 50% of climate funding to the most vulnerable countries.
    
3. Fast-Track Climate Finance Facility — enabling faster, less bureaucratic climate assistance.
    
4. Global Renewable Partnership Initiative — accelerating clean energy technology transfer.
    
5. Strengthening Nature-Based Solutions — including forest governance through REDD+ and ACTO.

The Best Country Award is given to only one country delegate with the strongest overall diplomatic performance—covering the quality of arguments, contributions to discussions, negotiation skills, and consistency in representing national positions throughout the conference. This achievement demonstrates Dafa’s capacity as a young negotiator with a strong understanding of global climate issues. [Latifah]