Despite having contributed the least to climate-heating emissions, young people and future generations will bear the burden of the climate crisis. Young people will grow up on a planet that is increasingly altered by climate impacts, negatively affecting a number of dimensions of their lives - such as socioeconomic conditions, security, physical and mental health.
The current generation of adolescents and youth, comprising 24% of the global population and predominantly residing in low and middle-income countries, is the most exposed to climate stresses. Today, almost every young person in the world is exposed to at least one climate or environmental threat such as heatwaves, cyclones, air pollution, flooding, or water scarcity. These climate hazards not only pose direct risks to their physical and mental health, but also impair their access to essential services like nutrition, education, employment, and healthcare.1
The Youth Climate Movement has historically evolved through three distinct cycles, based on Andreas Malm's analytical framework.2 The first cycle began in 2006, reaching its peak in 2009 with large-scale marches during COP15. The second cycle took off in 2015, characterized by a shift from reformism to civil disobedience, such as actions against fossil fuel infrastructure and divestment from fossil fuels. The third and current cycle began in 2018, kickstarted by the Fridays For Future (FFF) movement. This cycle, powered by large-scale school strikes and demands for leaders to heed the science, has witnessed the YCM gaining significant momentum and mainstream attention.2,3
Young people are championing a Human Rights Based Approach (HRBA) to climate change, necessitating the design of climate policies that prioritize the needs of the most vulnerable and integrate key principles of participation, equality, non-discrimination, accountability, and transparency from human rights law. Youth activists are actively advocating for these principles on multiple fronts, from local communities to international forums. Movements such as Fridays for Future, the Children and Youth Constituency of the UNFCCC, and other youth-led initiatives, push for the rights of vulnerable populations to participate in climate processes while ensuring equality and non-discrimination.4
Despite recent achievements and the global recognition of youth activism, a significant gap remains in the integration of youth in climate policies. Only a fraction of nations' climate commitments in 2021 were youth-sensitive, illustrating an urgent need for the adoption of human rights-based policies.4 Additionally, people in positions of power who have influence to affect policy — such as politicians and celebrities — praise young people in a tokenistic manner to divert attention towards youth and their accolades and away from their own inaction. The term “Youthwashing” has gained popularity, and describes young people’s voices being used in a performative way without acting on their concerns, needs or demands.5
Dominique Palmer
How Fridays for Future Went Global
Fridays for Future is a global youth-led movement demanding climate action. It began in August 2018, when Greta Thunberg sat in front of the Swedish parliament every Friday, and globally, youth increasingly raised the alarm on the climate crisis. Then, the school strikes went viral — and young people started organizing climate strikes in unprecedented numbers, shifting the narrative on the climate crisis and becoming the beating heart of the climate movement. Being part of the rise of young people demanding climate justice across the world was exciting, and an emotional rollercoaster.
After discovering the disproportionate impact of air pollution in South London where I grew up, and the consequence of rising sea levels in island nations such as Jamaica, I sought out other young people who also felt the fire in their heart to take urgent action. After attending my first climate strike in London in May 2019, I joined Extinction Rebellion Youth, and later Fridays for Future International and its UK branch, the UK Student Climate Network (UKSCN). In September 2019, we co-organized the largest environmental protest in UK history. Over 350,000 people took to the streets across the country, alongside millions across the world. This wave of protest was the biggest environmental movement in history. We brought an emotional narrative to the climate crisis, touching hearts and telling our unique stories. We shifted public understanding of climate from something abstract, to something deeply personal, affecting our collective futures.
These incredible feats were due to the distinct type of organizing of young people. We utilized many tools — such as mobilizing people onto the streets, meeting with politicians, and speaking in the media. We onboarded other young people, organized logistics and legal safety of protests. We reached out to allies and older adults in the movement, who provided spaces to meet, opportunities to connect and collaborate with other groups, and occasionally funding. We mobilized through community outreach, pasting posters and stickers across the city, using the power of social media, making activism look fun, and tugging on heartstrings. We were serious, but we also had fun with it, which allowed us to engage new audiences.
Our success did not come without challenges. After many successful strikes, the media moved on, the excitement wore down, and we struggled to mobilize a higher number of people than we wanted to. We needed to find other communication strategies to sustain a global movement. Our biggest challenge hit shortly after — COVID-19. To continue to mobilize people during a global pandemic, we had to change our strategy. The pandemic prevented us from organizing in person, so we started #ClimateStrikeOnline on social media, and organized large Zoom calls every Friday as well as livestreams with scientists to keep the momentum going. We made sure that the climate was not forgotten about. It was a dark time, but it also showed many people that we need to move towards a system which prioritizes the wellbeing of people and the planet. Organizing globally also brought global solidarity to the movement, and allowed us to amplify those on the front lines of the climate crisis — marking a shift in how the global FFF movement’s focus on social justice alongside climate action.
One of the biggest communications challenges we face is to show the variety of ways activism can take place — beyond protest and strikes. Another one is communicating to the public that a green future is best for all of us. We need to utilize positive messaging and show people what a sustainable future actually looks like. Lastly, communicating the complexities of climate action and justice can be difficult. We face big oil, and those who want to stick to the status quo — those people hold systemic power. But they underestimate the power of the people — and what young people have done, and continue to do, is truly monumental.
"Mapping the Youth Climate Movement" by Climate Vanguard provides an insightful exploration into the evolving dynamics of the youth climate movement and how it has developed around the issue of systemic change, specifically targeting capitalism and colonialism as the root causes of climate and ecological breakdown. According to the authors, one of the key challenges the movement is facing is its lack of a coherent theory of change, long-term strategy and coordination. This lack of unity, coupled with limited material resources, poses a significant obstacle to the movement's progress.
Over half of the groups surveyed for the report identified a system prioritizing profit over people and the planet, specifically capitalism and (neo-)colonialism, as the root cause of climate and ecological breakdown. Despite this, many groups within the Youth Climate Movement had not translated their understanding of these root causes into a vision of structural, systemic change. Instead, they often seek to reform the worst features of the current economic system, rather than directly uproot it. The Youth Climate Movement, despite its potential for radical transformation, requires significant support to overcome its current challenges. In particular, the need for funding, organizational development, networking, vision-building, and skills training is central. With the necessary aid and allyship, the Youth Climate Movement has the potential of becoming a powerful catalyst for systemic change.
Young people use a diverse range of mediums from marching on the streets to holding governments accountable to their actions and commitments in court. Most importantly, young voices have reached hearts and minds and truly shifted narratives around the climate crisis — by transforming climate from a distant issue to one affecting present and future generations. Activists have been using narratives and stories to forge a collective identity, recruit participants, motivate collective action and affect institutional policymaking.6 They have been successful both on a societal level (enlisting support from diverse groups including labor workers, teachers, existing environmental groups, celebrities, and collaborating partners), and in the political realm, influencing climate change policies in some countries — for example, the UK government declaring a climate emergency as the first country in the world after Greta Thunberg spoke to parliament and Extinction Rebellion blocked major roads in central London for ten consecutive days.
Nyombi Morris
Attending COP as a Young Change-Maker
As a climate activist from the global south, communication hurdles are numerous — a major one being language barriers. For someone who hasn’t studied English since elementary school, it has been difficult for me to convey my message in the manner that the rest of the world expects. Many climate change stories, panels, and speeches are conducted in English — if you want to be noticed, you must learn it.
COP27 was my first major climate conference, and I was disappointed at the lack of youth involvement. To me, it seemed like the meeting was only for leaders and policymakers — young people did not have access to many negotiations unless we had government accreditation. It is also very difficult to establish dialogue with leaders at these conferences due to the high level of security. Often, opportunities for youth voices to be heard are limited to demonstrations outside the venue. But even then, coverage is limited, and only a few lucky people have their voices heard.
Finally, the meetings are teeming with fossil fuel lobbyists — over 600, according to a Guardian article.7 We need to make more room for young people to speak at such events, rather than merely complementing us for our efforts. We must also do everything possible to ban fossil industry lobbyists from climate negotiations — they keep diverting people's attention away from what they have done to the world, and what needs to be done to tackle climate change.
The ripple effects of youth activism mean that often the success is immeasurable and rather than having a direct effect, actions shift the spectrum of acceptability for governmental inaction and policy. This is known as ‘the Overton Window’.8 In 2015, 21 youth plaintiffs in the US sued the Federal Government over violating their civil rights to a safe climate. Although this was blocked as it was supposedly beyond the government’s ‘constitutional power’,9 since then many other youth groups have followed suit by suing their respective governments, including in Portugal, England, the Netherlands, Colombia and Pakistan. In a landmark lawsuit led by a group of Montana Youths in 2023, a court ruled that young people have a constitutional right to a healthy environment, and that the state must consider the potential climate impacts of new fossil fuel projects.10 Many of these cases have been successful in their own right and resulted in a tightening of decarbonization and deforestation legislation.
.png)
Omnia El Omrani
My Experience as the COP27 Youth Envoy
In 2021, the Egyptian COP27 Presidency appointed a youth envoy for the first time with a vision of bringing in a meaningful transformation in the participation of youth and reflection of their perspectives into the formal climate negotiation processes.
Ahead of COP, a separate Conference of Youth (COY) takes place which has been organized by YOUNG-O, the official youth and children constituency to the UNFCCC, for the past 17 years and running. At the end of each COY there's a global youth statement - a policy document representing the voices of over 30,000 young people around the world. This is then presented to the presidency in a ceremony to consider how we can take these recommendations on board in a meaningful way, and have them implemented within the COP conversation, which the Presidency facilitates.
One of my roles is to facilitate our discussions with the youth constituency and other youth, run consultations with them and listen to the challenges that we as the presidency can address. But we also listen to policy recommendations that we can work with country negotiators to integrate. We also organize the Youth Day, which is the presidency’s and YOUNG-O’s semantic day during the first week of COP, and all the seventh sessions on that day.
My work has three main pillars. The first is to build the capacity of young people who are coming to COP. I worked with an amazing team of Egyptian young volunteers from the Ministry of Youth on organizing COY17 along with five Egyptian youth-led organizations. The second pillar was to create a toolkit for young people attending COP, to understand the process better and make the most out of their participation - for example, the different opportunities they can engage in and the different structures that exist within the UNFCCC space, as well as tips on how to make the most out of meetings with negotiators influencing countries, to make sure they don’t backtrack on their promises and step up their ambitious.
To achieve that, we need to centralize the needs of young people and facilitate intergenerational dialogues with young people as equal partners. I also supported the first ever Children and Youth Pavilion bringing in all the different key actors. The spirit was to amplify and elevate the grassroot efforts and innovative solutions that young people are leading in their fields, which is why we created an online platform leading up to COP, to showcase young people’s stories.
In recent times, there has been a change in the activism approaches, with a shift from protest to dialogue and an increased emphasis on diversity of tactics. This development has seen a strategic move away from disruptive activism, focusing on fostering conversations to generate consensus and promote change. The impacts of the global pandemic and the cost of living crisis have played a role in reshaping activism, prompting a reevaluation of priorities and approaches. While protest remains an important tactic for climate advocates, the role of dialogue has increased alongside it. As society moves forward, solutions from youth activists are increasingly important. Rolling out climate education globally will be crucial in equipping the next generation of climate leaders with the knowledge and tools to contribute to the changes needed to meet safe and ambitious climate targets (see Climate Literacy and Education).
To maintain and increase their impact, young activists are in need of communication support. Many groups are busy enough organizing and campaigning on top of school, university and other commitments — finding space for long-term strategic messaging development is easily neglected. This issue is not limited to the Youth Climate Movement — in The Activist's Media Handbook, David Fenton points out that activists can sometimes act on their emotions and rage instead of using smart tactics to win over majority opinion. Issues such as ideological rigidity and the failure to put forward a clear program that appeals to most working Americans have contributed to movements’ continued inability to gain power. He further stresses that the language of the climate movement doesn’t work for most people, and that NGOs continue to be preoccupied with policy, neglecting the importance of capturing public support.11
Recent years have seen a rise of young climate content creators, who are using their communication and media skills to educate, influence and mobilize. Increasingly, they are seen as important players in national and global policy — in 2023, a group of advocates were invited to visit the White House following the passing of the Inflation Reduction Act, as recounted by climate educator and content creator Isaias Hernandez:
.png)
Isaias Hernandez
TikTok Meets White House
In September 2022, I was invited to the White House to celebrate the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. The event was organized by Climate Power and Palette Media, which brought together social, racial, and environmental justice media creators, activists and artists to learn about the recent progress the Biden Administration has made on their climate commitments. I never would have thought in my life to be in the same room with politicians like Gina McCarthy and Ali Zaidi. Never in my life did I think that as someone doing environmental communications, my work would be noticed by the White House. Only a few years prior in 2018, when I was wrapping up my Environmental Science undergraduate at UC Berkeley, I had professors laugh at my idea of using social media to create social change.
On the day, we were invited to Theodore Roosevelt's old room and sat at a long dining table — and out of nowhere, President Joe Biden came out and said hello, which was a huge surprise to us. To see our current President validate, hear, and talk to us about the future of our climate was a big deal. He acknowledged that he’s not perfect and that not everyone agrees with his policy choices, but stressed that we do have one common goal — to make the world a better place, even if we have different theories of change. I also had the opportunity of meeting and interviewing VP Kamala Harris that day. I asked her opinion on how banning critical race theory affected our environmental justice efforts. She told me that we as young people have to demand justice, and I realized that the work I’d done as a communicator was to do just that.12
It was a privilege to use my social media platform to communicate my learnings. And although I don’t agree with many politicians today — voting does work. It is important to get the youth vote out there, which is why the purpose of my visit to the White House was to educate. It’s hard. It’s frustrating. It’s contradicting. But after meeting so many young people at the White House, I knew that all of us were working to create change. That trip was one of the most memorable moments of my life.
Young people face the multifaceted impacts of the climate crisis in every aspect of their lives. The Youth Climate Movement has evolved over the years, dynamically adapting its strategies to make its voice heard and effect change. But until this day, there remains a gap between youth activism and the required institutional response, beyond tokenistic praise from those in power.
It’s crucial that we not only listen to young climate advocates but integrate their insights, solutions, and demands into global policies and strategies, as well as providing them with the necessary support and tools — including effective communication strategies and climate education. The ripple effects of youth activism are immeasurable and have undeniably shifted global action, turning the climate crisis from a distant problem to an immediate concern. As the urgency of the climate crisis escalates, the world must harness the power of youth activism — ensuring that their voices play a central part in climate conversations.
Influencing the Influencers
In the digital age, influencers play a big role in how people think and feel about the climate crisis, and whether they act on it. Influencers’ vast platforms — often reaching millions of followers — allow them to share information, shape public opinion, and inspire action, often on a global scale. When celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio, Emma Watson and Jane Fonda advocate for policy change, they not only raise awareness but legitimize them in the public eye. Influencers and celebrities have the power to bridge the gap between the science community and mainstream, by communicating in accessible and relatable ways. By using their personal stories and experiences, they can motivate individual behavior change as well as engagement in activism.
Keep reading- Malm A. How to Blow up a Pipeline: Learning to Fight in a World on Fire. First edition paperback. Verso; 2021
- Stosny S. He once called it ‘election stress disorder.’ Now the therapist says we’re suffering from this. The Washington Post. Published 2017. Accessed May 24, 2023. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2017/02/06/suffering-from-headline-stress-disorder-since-trumps-win-youre-definitely-not-alone/?noredirect=on
- Neas S, Ward A, Bowman B. Young people’s climate activism: A review of the literature. Front Polit Sci. 2022;4. Accessed August 1, 2023. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpos.2022.940876
- Gasparri G, Imbago-Jácome D, Lakhani H, Yeung W, El Omrani O. Adolescents and youth are prioritising human rights in the climate change agenda. BMJ. Published online October 11, 2022:o2401. doi:10.1136/bmj.o2401
- The Climate Reality Project. You’ve heard of greenwashing, but what is youthwashing? The Climate Reality Project. Published April 5, 2023. Accessed August 7, 2023. https://www.climaterealityproject.org/blog/youve-heard-greenwashing-what-youthwashing
- Han H, Ahn SW. Youth Mobilization to Stop Global Climate Change: Narratives and Impact. Sustainability. 2020;12(10):4127. doi:10.3390/su12104127
- Michaelson R. ‘Explosion’ in number of fossil fuel lobbyists at Cop27 climate summit. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/10/big-rise-in-number-of-fossil-fuel-lobbyists-at-cop27-climate-summit. Published November 10, 2022. Accessed August 21, 2023.
- Astor M. How the Politically Unthinkable Can Become Mainstream. The New York Times. Published 2019. Accessed June 6, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/26/us/politics/overton-window-democrats.html
- Harvard Law Review. Juliana v. United States - Comment on 947 F.3d 1159 (9th Cir. 2020). Fed Courts - Recent Case. 2021;134(5). Accessed June 6, 2023. https://harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-134/juliana-v-united-states/
- Gelles D, Baker M. Judge Rules in Favor of Montana Youths in a Landmark Climate Case. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/14/us/montana-youth-climate-ruling.html. Published August 14, 2023. Accessed August 29, 2023.
- Isaias Hernandez. Queer Brown Vegan: “I asked Vice President Kamala Harris a question.” Instagram. Published September 15, 2022. Accessed August 21, 2023. https://www.instagram.com/reel/CiiB_ibu2-O/
- Fenton D. The Activist’s Media Handbook: Lessons from Fifty Years as a Progressive Agitator. Earth Aware Editions; 2022.
Source: Fridays for Future
Despite having contributed the least to climate-heating emissions, young people and future generations will bear the burden of the climate crisis. Young people will grow up on a planet that is increasingly altered by climate impacts, negatively affecting a number of dimensions of their lives - such as socioeconomic conditions, security, physical and mental health.
The current generation of adolescents and youth, comprising 24% of the global population and predominantly residing in low and middle-income countries, is the most exposed to climate stresses. Today, almost every young person in the world is exposed to at least one climate or environmental threat such as heatwaves, cyclones, air pollution, flooding, or water scarcity. These climate hazards not only pose direct risks to their physical and mental health, but also impair their access to essential services like nutrition, education, employment, and healthcare.1
The Youth Climate Movement has historically evolved through three distinct cycles, based on Andreas Malm's analytical framework.2 The first cycle began in 2006, reaching its peak in 2009 with large-scale marches during COP15. The second cycle took off in 2015, characterized by a shift from reformism to civil disobedience, such as actions against fossil fuel infrastructure and divestment from fossil fuels. The third and current cycle began in 2018, kickstarted by the Fridays For Future (FFF) movement. This cycle, powered by large-scale school strikes and demands for leaders to heed the science, has witnessed the YCM gaining significant momentum and mainstream attention.2,3
Young people are championing a Human Rights Based Approach (HRBA) to climate change, necessitating the design of climate policies that prioritize the needs of the most vulnerable and integrate key principles of participation, equality, non-discrimination, accountability, and transparency from human rights law. Youth activists are actively advocating for these principles on multiple fronts, from local communities to international forums. Movements such as Fridays for Future, the Children and Youth Constituency of the UNFCCC, and other youth-led initiatives, push for the rights of vulnerable populations to participate in climate processes while ensuring equality and non-discrimination.4
Despite recent achievements and the global recognition of youth activism, a significant gap remains in the integration of youth in climate policies. Only a fraction of nations' climate commitments in 2021 were youth-sensitive, illustrating an urgent need for the adoption of human rights-based policies.4 Additionally, people in positions of power who have influence to affect policy — such as politicians and celebrities — praise young people in a tokenistic manner to divert attention towards youth and their accolades and away from their own inaction. The term “Youthwashing” has gained popularity, and describes young people’s voices being used in a performative way without acting on their concerns, needs or demands.5
Dominique Palmer
How Fridays for Future Went Global
Fridays for Future is a global youth-led movement demanding climate action. It began in August 2018, when Greta Thunberg sat in front of the Swedish parliament every Friday, and globally, youth increasingly raised the alarm on the climate crisis. Then, the school strikes went viral — and young people started organizing climate strikes in unprecedented numbers, shifting the narrative on the climate crisis and becoming the beating heart of the climate movement. Being part of the rise of young people demanding climate justice across the world was exciting, and an emotional rollercoaster.
After discovering the disproportionate impact of air pollution in South London where I grew up, and the consequence of rising sea levels in island nations such as Jamaica, I sought out other young people who also felt the fire in their heart to take urgent action. After attending my first climate strike in London in May 2019, I joined Extinction Rebellion Youth, and later Fridays for Future International and its UK branch, the UK Student Climate Network (UKSCN). In September 2019, we co-organized the largest environmental protest in UK history. Over 350,000 people took to the streets across the country, alongside millions across the world. This wave of protest was the biggest environmental movement in history. We brought an emotional narrative to the climate crisis, touching hearts and telling our unique stories. We shifted public understanding of climate from something abstract, to something deeply personal, affecting our collective futures.
These incredible feats were due to the distinct type of organizing of young people. We utilized many tools — such as mobilizing people onto the streets, meeting with politicians, and speaking in the media. We onboarded other young people, organized logistics and legal safety of protests. We reached out to allies and older adults in the movement, who provided spaces to meet, opportunities to connect and collaborate with other groups, and occasionally funding. We mobilized through community outreach, pasting posters and stickers across the city, using the power of social media, making activism look fun, and tugging on heartstrings. We were serious, but we also had fun with it, which allowed us to engage new audiences.
Our success did not come without challenges. After many successful strikes, the media moved on, the excitement wore down, and we struggled to mobilize a higher number of people than we wanted to. We needed to find other communication strategies to sustain a global movement. Our biggest challenge hit shortly after — COVID-19. To continue to mobilize people during a global pandemic, we had to change our strategy. The pandemic prevented us from organizing in person, so we started #ClimateStrikeOnline on social media, and organized large Zoom calls every Friday as well as livestreams with scientists to keep the momentum going. We made sure that the climate was not forgotten about. It was a dark time, but it also showed many people that we need to move towards a system which prioritizes the wellbeing of people and the planet. Organizing globally also brought global solidarity to the movement, and allowed us to amplify those on the front lines of the climate crisis — marking a shift in how the global FFF movement’s focus on social justice alongside climate action.
One of the biggest communications challenges we face is to show the variety of ways activism can take place — beyond protest and strikes. Another one is communicating to the public that a green future is best for all of us. We need to utilize positive messaging and show people what a sustainable future actually looks like. Lastly, communicating the complexities of climate action and justice can be difficult. We face big oil, and those who want to stick to the status quo — those people hold systemic power. But they underestimate the power of the people — and what young people have done, and continue to do, is truly monumental.
"Mapping the Youth Climate Movement" by Climate Vanguard provides an insightful exploration into the evolving dynamics of the youth climate movement and how it has developed around the issue of systemic change, specifically targeting capitalism and colonialism as the root causes of climate and ecological breakdown. According to the authors, one of the key challenges the movement is facing is its lack of a coherent theory of change, long-term strategy and coordination. This lack of unity, coupled with limited material resources, poses a significant obstacle to the movement's progress.
Over half of the groups surveyed for the report identified a system prioritizing profit over people and the planet, specifically capitalism and (neo-)colonialism, as the root cause of climate and ecological breakdown. Despite this, many groups within the Youth Climate Movement had not translated their understanding of these root causes into a vision of structural, systemic change. Instead, they often seek to reform the worst features of the current economic system, rather than directly uproot it. The Youth Climate Movement, despite its potential for radical transformation, requires significant support to overcome its current challenges. In particular, the need for funding, organizational development, networking, vision-building, and skills training is central. With the necessary aid and allyship, the Youth Climate Movement has the potential of becoming a powerful catalyst for systemic change.
Young people use a diverse range of mediums from marching on the streets to holding governments accountable to their actions and commitments in court. Most importantly, young voices have reached hearts and minds and truly shifted narratives around the climate crisis — by transforming climate from a distant issue to one affecting present and future generations. Activists have been using narratives and stories to forge a collective identity, recruit participants, motivate collective action and affect institutional policymaking.6 They have been successful both on a societal level (enlisting support from diverse groups including labor workers, teachers, existing environmental groups, celebrities, and collaborating partners), and in the political realm, influencing climate change policies in some countries — for example, the UK government declaring a climate emergency as the first country in the world after Greta Thunberg spoke to parliament and Extinction Rebellion blocked major roads in central London for ten consecutive days.
Nyombi Morris
Attending COP as a Young Change-Maker
As a climate activist from the global south, communication hurdles are numerous — a major one being language barriers. For someone who hasn’t studied English since elementary school, it has been difficult for me to convey my message in the manner that the rest of the world expects. Many climate change stories, panels, and speeches are conducted in English — if you want to be noticed, you must learn it.
COP27 was my first major climate conference, and I was disappointed at the lack of youth involvement. To me, it seemed like the meeting was only for leaders and policymakers — young people did not have access to many negotiations unless we had government accreditation. It is also very difficult to establish dialogue with leaders at these conferences due to the high level of security. Often, opportunities for youth voices to be heard are limited to demonstrations outside the venue. But even then, coverage is limited, and only a few lucky people have their voices heard.
Finally, the meetings are teeming with fossil fuel lobbyists — over 600, according to a Guardian article.7 We need to make more room for young people to speak at such events, rather than merely complementing us for our efforts. We must also do everything possible to ban fossil industry lobbyists from climate negotiations — they keep diverting people's attention away from what they have done to the world, and what needs to be done to tackle climate change.
The ripple effects of youth activism mean that often the success is immeasurable and rather than having a direct effect, actions shift the spectrum of acceptability for governmental inaction and policy. This is known as ‘the Overton Window’.8 In 2015, 21 youth plaintiffs in the US sued the Federal Government over violating their civil rights to a safe climate. Although this was blocked as it was supposedly beyond the government’s ‘constitutional power’,9 since then many other youth groups have followed suit by suing their respective governments, including in Portugal, England, the Netherlands, Colombia and Pakistan. In a landmark lawsuit led by a group of Montana Youths in 2023, a court ruled that young people have a constitutional right to a healthy environment, and that the state must consider the potential climate impacts of new fossil fuel projects.10 Many of these cases have been successful in their own right and resulted in a tightening of decarbonization and deforestation legislation.
Omnia El Omrani
My Experience as the COP27 Youth Envoy
In 2021, the Egyptian COP27 Presidency appointed a youth envoy for the first time with a vision of bringing in a meaningful transformation in the participation of youth and reflection of their perspectives into the formal climate negotiation processes.
Ahead of COP, a separate Conference of Youth (COY) takes place which has been organized by YOUNG-O, the official youth and children constituency to the UNFCCC, for the past 17 years and running. At the end of each COY there's a global youth statement - a policy document representing the voices of over 30,000 young people around the world. This is then presented to the presidency in a ceremony to consider how we can take these recommendations on board in a meaningful way, and have them implemented within the COP conversation, which the Presidency facilitates.
One of my roles is to facilitate our discussions with the youth constituency and other youth, run consultations with them and listen to the challenges that we as the presidency can address. But we also listen to policy recommendations that we can work with country negotiators to integrate. We also organize the Youth Day, which is the presidency’s and YOUNG-O’s semantic day during the first week of COP, and all the seventh sessions on that day.
My work has three main pillars. The first is to build the capacity of young people who are coming to COP. I worked with an amazing team of Egyptian young volunteers from the Ministry of Youth on organizing COY17 along with five Egyptian youth-led organizations. The second pillar was to create a toolkit for young people attending COP, to understand the process better and make the most out of their participation - for example, the different opportunities they can engage in and the different structures that exist within the UNFCCC space, as well as tips on how to make the most out of meetings with negotiators influencing countries, to make sure they don’t backtrack on their promises and step up their ambitious.
To achieve that, we need to centralize the needs of young people and facilitate intergenerational dialogues with young people as equal partners. I also supported the first ever Children and Youth Pavilion bringing in all the different key actors. The spirit was to amplify and elevate the grassroot efforts and innovative solutions that young people are leading in their fields, which is why we created an online platform leading up to COP, to showcase young people’s stories.
In recent times, there has been a change in the activism approaches, with a shift from protest to dialogue and an increased emphasis on diversity of tactics. This development has seen a strategic move away from disruptive activism, focusing on fostering conversations to generate consensus and promote change. The impacts of the global pandemic and the cost of living crisis have played a role in reshaping activism, prompting a reevaluation of priorities and approaches. While protest remains an important tactic for climate advocates, the role of dialogue has increased alongside it. As society moves forward, solutions from youth activists are increasingly important. Rolling out climate education globally will be crucial in equipping the next generation of climate leaders with the knowledge and tools to contribute to the changes needed to meet safe and ambitious climate targets (see Climate Literacy and Education).
To maintain and increase their impact, young activists are in need of communication support. Many groups are busy enough organizing and campaigning on top of school, university and other commitments — finding space for long-term strategic messaging development is easily neglected. This issue is not limited to the Youth Climate Movement — in The Activist's Media Handbook, David Fenton points out that activists can sometimes act on their emotions and rage instead of using smart tactics to win over majority opinion. Issues such as ideological rigidity and the failure to put forward a clear program that appeals to most working Americans have contributed to movements’ continued inability to gain power. He further stresses that the language of the climate movement doesn’t work for most people, and that NGOs continue to be preoccupied with policy, neglecting the importance of capturing public support.11
Recent years have seen a rise of young climate content creators, who are using their communication and media skills to educate, influence and mobilize. Increasingly, they are seen as important players in national and global policy — in 2023, a group of advocates were invited to visit the White House following the passing of the Inflation Reduction Act, as recounted by climate educator and content creator Isaias Hernandez:
Isaias Hernandez
TikTok Meets White House
In September 2022, I was invited to the White House to celebrate the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. The event was organized by Climate Power and Palette Media, which brought together social, racial, and environmental justice media creators, activists and artists to learn about the recent progress the Biden Administration has made on their climate commitments. I never would have thought in my life to be in the same room with politicians like Gina McCarthy and Ali Zaidi. Never in my life did I think that as someone doing environmental communications, my work would be noticed by the White House. Only a few years prior in 2018, when I was wrapping up my Environmental Science undergraduate at UC Berkeley, I had professors laugh at my idea of using social media to create social change.
On the day, we were invited to Theodore Roosevelt's old room and sat at a long dining table — and out of nowhere, President Joe Biden came out and said hello, which was a huge surprise to us. To see our current President validate, hear, and talk to us about the future of our climate was a big deal. He acknowledged that he’s not perfect and that not everyone agrees with his policy choices, but stressed that we do have one common goal — to make the world a better place, even if we have different theories of change. I also had the opportunity of meeting and interviewing VP Kamala Harris that day. I asked her opinion on how banning critical race theory affected our environmental justice efforts. She told me that we as young people have to demand justice, and I realized that the work I’d done as a communicator was to do just that.12
It was a privilege to use my social media platform to communicate my learnings. And although I don’t agree with many politicians today — voting does work. It is important to get the youth vote out there, which is why the purpose of my visit to the White House was to educate. It’s hard. It’s frustrating. It’s contradicting. But after meeting so many young people at the White House, I knew that all of us were working to create change. That trip was one of the most memorable moments of my life.
Young people face the multifaceted impacts of the climate crisis in every aspect of their lives. The Youth Climate Movement has evolved over the years, dynamically adapting its strategies to make its voice heard and effect change. But until this day, there remains a gap between youth activism and the required institutional response, beyond tokenistic praise from those in power.
It’s crucial that we not only listen to young climate advocates but integrate their insights, solutions, and demands into global policies and strategies, as well as providing them with the necessary support and tools — including effective communication strategies and climate education. The ripple effects of youth activism are immeasurable and have undeniably shifted global action, turning the climate crisis from a distant problem to an immediate concern. As the urgency of the climate crisis escalates, the world must harness the power of youth activism — ensuring that their voices play a central part in climate conversations.
Source: Fridays for Future
Influencing the Influencers
In the digital age, influencers play a big role in how people think and feel about the climate crisis, and whether they act on it. Influencers’ vast platforms — often reaching millions of followers — allow them to share information, shape public opinion, and inspire action, often on a global scale. When celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio, Emma Watson and Jane Fonda advocate for policy change, they not only raise awareness but legitimize them in the public eye. Influencers and celebrities have the power to bridge the gap between the science community and mainstream, by communicating in accessible and relatable ways. By using their personal stories and experiences, they can motivate individual behavior change as well as engagement in activism.
Keep reading- Malm A. How to Blow up a Pipeline: Learning to Fight in a World on Fire. First edition paperback. Verso; 2021
- Stosny S. He once called it ‘election stress disorder.’ Now the therapist says we’re suffering from this. The Washington Post. Published 2017. Accessed May 24, 2023. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2017/02/06/suffering-from-headline-stress-disorder-since-trumps-win-youre-definitely-not-alone/?noredirect=on
- Neas S, Ward A, Bowman B. Young people’s climate activism: A review of the literature. Front Polit Sci. 2022;4. Accessed August 1, 2023. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpos.2022.940876
- Gasparri G, Imbago-Jácome D, Lakhani H, Yeung W, El Omrani O. Adolescents and youth are prioritising human rights in the climate change agenda. BMJ. Published online October 11, 2022:o2401. doi:10.1136/bmj.o2401
- The Climate Reality Project. You’ve heard of greenwashing, but what is youthwashing? The Climate Reality Project. Published April 5, 2023. Accessed August 7, 2023. https://www.climaterealityproject.org/blog/youve-heard-greenwashing-what-youthwashing
- Han H, Ahn SW. Youth Mobilization to Stop Global Climate Change: Narratives and Impact. Sustainability. 2020;12(10):4127. doi:10.3390/su12104127
- Michaelson R. ‘Explosion’ in number of fossil fuel lobbyists at Cop27 climate summit. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/10/big-rise-in-number-of-fossil-fuel-lobbyists-at-cop27-climate-summit. Published November 10, 2022. Accessed August 21, 2023.
- Astor M. How the Politically Unthinkable Can Become Mainstream. The New York Times. Published 2019. Accessed June 6, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/26/us/politics/overton-window-democrats.html
- Harvard Law Review. Juliana v. United States - Comment on 947 F.3d 1159 (9th Cir. 2020). Fed Courts - Recent Case. 2021;134(5). Accessed June 6, 2023. https://harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-134/juliana-v-united-states/
- Gelles D, Baker M. Judge Rules in Favor of Montana Youths in a Landmark Climate Case. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/14/us/montana-youth-climate-ruling.html. Published August 14, 2023. Accessed August 29, 2023.
- Isaias Hernandez. Queer Brown Vegan: “I asked Vice President Kamala Harris a question.” Instagram. Published September 15, 2022. Accessed August 21, 2023. https://www.instagram.com/reel/CiiB_ibu2-O/
- Fenton D. The Activist’s Media Handbook: Lessons from Fifty Years as a Progressive Agitator. Earth Aware Editions; 2022.
