Youth Climate Lab (YCL) is a Canadian-based, globally active organization dedicated to empowering youth as agents of systemic climate action. Founded in 2017, YCL builds pathways for young people to engage meaningfully in climate policymaking, innovation, and entrepreneurship, not only as participants, but as leaders and co-creators of sustainable futures.
Strategic Approach
YCL's work is structured around a three-pillar approach:
- Activate Through capacity-building workshops, mentorship programs, and access to resources, YCL equips youth with the knowledge and tools to understand systems-level change and navigate the climate space confidently.
- Accelerate YCL provides platforms and support to scale youth-led climate initiatives, whether through incubation programs, funding opportunities, or networking with policy and business actors. Their acceleration programs foster entrepreneurial thinking tied to social and ecological impact.
- Amplify Youth voices are elevated through storytelling, research dissemination, and participation in national and international fora (e.g., COPs). YCL emphasizes equitable representation, particularly of Indigenous youth, racialized communities, and young people from the Global South.
Shifting the role of youth
YCL's work has helped shift the role of youth in climate action from advocacy to decision-making and innovation, across multiple sectors from governance to the green economy.
Key outcomes include:
- Creation of inclusive spaces for youth-led dialogue and solution-building, often focusing on climate justice, equity, and systemic transformation.
- Support for community-rooted initiatives, such as Indigenous-led climate research or youth-designed climate policies tailored to local realities.
- Development of new models for engagement, including hackathons, climate fellowships, and circular economy labs, that connect young people with experts and institutions.
- Policy influence, with YCL alumni contributing to national climate plans, just transition strategies, and international climate negotiations.
Visions of the "Future"
Youth Climate Lab encourages youth to imagine regenerative, equitable futures where climate action is embedded in all aspects of their lives and how they are invested in them
Participants have envisioned:
- Decentralized energy systems that empower communities;
- Reimagined urban spaces that prioritize resilience, access, and biodiversity;
- Circular economic models that embed care, sustainability, and solidarity;
- And intergenerational leadership frameworks, where youth and elders co-create solutions grounded in justice and respect for all beings.
These visions have been conceptualised in tools.
Examples of Youth-Imagined futures through YCL Initiatives (climate and non-climate)
1. Reimagining Finance: "Designing Youth Futures"
In this program, youth participants developed prototypes for a just financial system that supports climate action. For example:
- A green investment cooperative managed by and for youth, enabling local projects like renewable energy retrofits or sustainable transport.
- Climate reparations fund model aimed at redistributing wealth toward Indigenous and racialized communities most affected by climate impacts.
2. Circular Economy Lab (Ottawa)
This local lab brought together youth to reimagine a waste-free and circular urban economy. Projects included:
- A community bike repair and reuse network to reduce transportation emissions and empower low-income residents and a zero-waste campus café model piloted in collaboration with local universities, including composting systems and reusable container schemes.
3. Climate Convergence (Youth-led policy design)
Youth participants co-developed policy proposals on topics like climate adaptation, youth employment, and intergenerational equity. Examples:
- A national green Jobs for youth strategy, focused on rural and Indigenous communities.
- Climate literacy mandates in fields of education, designed with regional specificity and culturally appropriate materials.
4. Art x Climate Programs
YCL integrates creative methods to imagine climate futures. In workshops and exhibitions, youth produced:
- Fictional narratives and graphic novels imagining life in post-carbon cities with community-run food systems, co-housing, and decolonized governance structures. and put in public art installations representing "climate grief" and "climate hope" as catalysts for community dialogue.
5. Land-based Indigenous Climate Solutions
In collaboration with Indigenous youth and elders, YCL supported:
- Projects restoring traditional ecological knowledge in watershed governance.
- Design of land stewardship curricula rooted in Indigenous languages and seasonal cycles, imagined as part of future educational systems.