In this section, we look at what the projects say, not just in terms of policy recommendations, but also in terms of how young people perceive their political institutions, what they expect (and don’t expect) from them, and how they would transform them. This also leads to reflection on alternative governance mechanisms, as well as youth’s involvement in policymaking.
Hope and (mis)trust
From most projects comes an initial message: there is a lot that institutions could and should do, and that they are not doing, or not doing at the necessary scale.
“Despite our diversity, we share a wide range of deeply uncomfortable climate-related feelings, including worry, sorrow, grief, fear, anger, hopelessness and responsibility. These feelings tend to persist over time, increasing when we experience climate impacts, when we hear of them happening overseas, or when we are reminded of the inaction of political and corporate leaders.”
Not About Us Without Us
Young people’s perception of institutional “inaction” appears overwhelming, and it is actively eroding their trust in institutions. This does not mean that young activists have given up on trying to influence policymaking, from the local to the global stage. Quite the opposite: it should invite institutions to alter governance mechanisms in order to structurally include youths in decision-making, so that they are not limited to hoping that others will eventually do what is expected of them.
Policy recommendations
Many of the projects we have surveyed have come up with policy recommendations. We list a few of them below. Although they can get quite precise and technical, most of them are not particularly new or radical. What the projects have to tell us is not so much about the substance of policies, but rather about (i) what young people’s priorities may be, and how they might differ from those of experts and policymakers; and (ii) again, how to overcome inaction.
POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS (not exhaustive) | SOURCE PROJECT(S) |
Law and regulation | |
Legal personality for non-human entities (rivers, forests, animal species…) | |
Punish green washing. | |
Changing incentives | |
Coercive policies, taxes and subsidies to reorient production, consumption and innovation. | |
Taxing the organizations causing the most climate damages. | |
Financial mechanisms | |
Carbon markets. | |
Redirecting innovation funds towards sustainable initiatives. | |
Closing the mitigation/adaptation “funding gap”. | |
Helping the least developed country to do their ecological transition; debt cancellation. | |
Loss and damage policies: climate litigation, climate insurance, dedicated funds, social justice funds for the communities most affected by climate change… | |
Climate reparations fund model aimed at redistributing wealth toward Indigenous and racialized communities most affected by climate impacts. | |
Sectorial transitions | |
Eco-literacy in education. | |
Equitable and massive energy transition in production as well as energy use (transportation, etc.) | Emerging Breakthroughs (and many others) |
Others | |
Climate migrations policies. | |
Moratorium on mining in the Arctic circle. | |
Mental health actions. | El Futuro Es Clima, The Eco-Anxiety Africa Project, Not About Us Without Us |
Government support for grassroot climate actions. |
Governance reshuffling
Many projects envisage a major shift of governance towards the local, community level, and some actually experiment it.
Puerto Rico 2054 was born from the government’s “absence” during hurricane Maria in 2017, and the need for community reliance and self-organization. It relates to an apparently common belief that climate resilience in the face of extreme weather events will need to rely on community action and solidarity as much, or perhaps more, than on technical measures or government intervention (Citadins, Citadines 2050).
Most of the projects organized around a city (Aubervilliers 2124) or a local ecosystem , ended up describing heavily community-centric approaches of governance, with higher-level public institutions (municipalities, regions, national governments) acting as supports, rather than in the lead. In the case of Bagmati River Youth Project (a project supported by the Nepalese government), the massive participation of young people in the “visioning” phase transformed the population’s relationship with their local river, and generated concrete community projects all along its banks to sustain the investments in infrastructure made by the Asian Development Bank.
There is also the hope that more local governance might be a way to counter the political polarization that many young people regret in national politics (Youth Talks, Message Towards the Region). One of the youth groups in Butterfly 2050 describe “local circular agoras” where decisions are made based on “consensus and compromise”.
However, a few projects also consider changes to higher-level governance structures and mechanisms: National climate assemblies (El Futuro Es Clima), formal involvement of youths in governance, new forms of climate negotiations (Le Théâtre des Négociations)…
Youth participation in governance
In most projects, local and community governance, as well as youth-led initiatives, are not meant to replace government institutions, but to work alongside them – and, at times, to goad them into action or to counterbalance bad decisions. “Young people cannot be left without allies”, write the researchers involved in the British Academy’s Youth Futures Under Construction project.
That means ensuring that young people have a real say in the decisions taken on climate, and other issues. Today, their representation is seen as either nonexistent, symbolic or tokenistic. One finds youth councils in several institutions, but they are usually at best places for young representatives to express themselves, with no formal voice in decision‑making.
→ How, concretely, could this be made to change? We discuss this in more depth in the WOW! section (Involving young people in decision making).
A major responsibility
Trust between young people and governments is low, particularly on climate action. This does not reflect a lack of expectations on the part of young people – in most projects, participants desperately call for government action –, but rather the feeling that these calls are not listened to.
“Children should not have to be the ones pushing for governmental change, because governments should understand their responsibilities and effectively put them into practice. Yet, because governments fail to do so, it is necessary that governance becomes equitable and accessible, as well as youth inclusive, because my generation will not have the same power to create change through policy in the future as governors have today and therefore should be included when it comes to speaking of our own future.”
Catarina, 18, Emerging Breakthroughs on Climate Change
If they wish to avoid a deeper rift between them and the “Climate Nativesdef:1”, governments need to take the initiative.
A Climate Native is a person who has grown up in a world marked by the prospect, and increasingly the reality, of anthropogenic climate change and its consequences.