This section examines how, and how prominently, the perceived or expected effects of climate change influence how young people imagine the future. These impacts are now part of many young people’s immediate lived reality, and not just distant risks. As a consequence, youths may describe both how they personally organize around these effects, and how they collectively fight them and/or their causes – sometimes turning adaptation to climate constraints into catalysts for reimagining livable worlds.
Climate impact featured in the narratives
Climate change is not a distant threat but a lived reality. In many parts of the world, youths already experience its consequences daily, prompting them to frame futures less around prevention and more around relief and recovery. Young people increasingly recognize they are growing up in a climate-affected world, where the crisis is not background noise but a central trend shaping their lives.
“We’ve grown up in the climate crisis. It shapes our education, our jobs, our futures. We can’t afford to be passive — we have to make space to act, even if it’s messy”
Net Zero and You(th)
Different proposals across these projects show how youths imagine mitigating climate impacts that are already here and will intensify in the future:
- Heat: In Message towards the Region (Slovakia), young people imagine “greening schoolyards and neighborhoods” to reduce heat in post-Soviet districts where concrete exacerbates heatwaves. Youth Climate Lab participants also reimagine urban spaces, prioritizing biodiversity as a transformative solution.
- Air and water pollution: Youths envisions water, land, and air freed from plastics and chemicals. “In the year 2041, global warming has finally disappeared and there will be no climate issues anymore… Since the air quality is better and there’s no pollution, people will live in a clean environment with fresh and cool atmosphere” (Museum of the Not-Yet-Possible). In Museo Del Futuro, young participants imagine a rewilded Mexico City, its rivers restored, with public parks replacing industrial zones, where the city coexists with nature after decades of water crises and air pollution. Citadin, Citadines 2050 participants paint a bleaker picture: “an environment so degraded it is almost uninhabitable outside a fortified “Bubble” around Paris’s historic center, at immense social cost, with few escape routes except revolt or extraordinary ingenuity.”
- Energy and power systems: Decentralized, renewable energy systems are proposed to empower communities to be more autonomous during disasters (storms, fires, blackouts). (Youth Climate Lab)
- Greenhouse gases: Circular economy models, such as green investment cooperatives funding renewable energy projects and sustainable transport, are envisioned to reduce emissions and build community wealth. (Youth Climate Lab)
- Shared spaces and governance: Fictional narratives and graphic novels imagine life in post-carbon cities with community-run food systems, co-housing, and decolonized1 governance structures. Projects highlight land-based Indigenous climate solutions and collaborations with Indigenous youths and elders to restore traditional ecological knowledge in watershed governance and to design land stewardship rooted in seasonal cycles — imagining these also as future educational systems. (Museo Del Futuro)
These narratives show that climate impacts strongly influence young people’s future worldviews, intersecting with other issues such as mental health,war, justice, work, and identity. For them, the call for climate action really amounts to building a livable future during their lifetime.
“Many of our feelings derive their intensity from the knowledge that the crisis is still not being taken seriously enough. If policymakers were more ambitious then we would only need to grieve the impacts that are already ‘locked in,’ rather than feeling worried and angry about the potential scale and impacts of continued climate neglect”
Not About Us Without Us
Consequences of climate change
In a growing number of countries, the consequences of climate change are now a daily reality. Whether recovering from disasters, enduring permanent heatwaves, or living in ongoing insecurity, young people strive to adapt to this new reality and still imagine alternative futures.
- Storms and disaster recovery: In Puerto Rico 2054, young people are “designing for disaster” in the wake of Hurricane Maria, which damaged housing, schools, and food distributions. In spite of their situation, the students envisioned climate-positive futures, designing water and food distribution systems as well as other types of services (community- or government-led) that could support strategies for resilience and survival.
- Eco-anxiety: Young people report a form of eco-anxiety tied to climate events and compounded by structural pressures. The Youth Talks global consultation captures this emotional toll: “Climate issues harm young people’s sense of futurity and generate anxiety.” Yet this fragile futurity does not necessarily translate into passivity; many express willingness to make sacrifices “provided these sacrifices make sense and are compatible with them finding their place in the world.” (more in the Emotions section)
- Heat: “With some schools already closing earlier in the day so children can seek relief from heat, a future in which night-mode learning is the norm is becoming more and more likely”, (Climate Futures in Mali). Workshops also flagged health impacts such as heat stress leading to irregular menstrual cycles and heavier bleeding, making school attendance even harder for girls.
- Migration: Some youth-led narratives explicitly address climate-driven migration. La Crise dont vous êtes le héros imagines a “welcoming metropolis” designed to accommodate inevitable climate migration within France and from abroad.
The impacts of climate change on young people are being felt and reflected through all of these projects. While they might still be associated with the future for some, they are daily realities for others. In any case, while the narratives often respond to these with positive solutions and creative ideas, climate change and its consequences are nonetheless felt as a permanent threat looming over tomorrow and impacting future decisions youths might need to take.
→ In the Climate Natives section of WOW! What we learned, we reflect further on what it means for young people to grow up in a world where climate change has never not been an issue…
Decoloniality refers to all the currents of thought, approaches and actions that challenge the colonial legacies embedded in the very structures of our society (in economic, political, cultural, and knowledge systems) and seek to restore the oppressed, marginalized and silenced voices. Thus, decoloniality aims at a structural and epistemic transformation of our ways of living. We recommend this Oxfam document to learn more about this topic.