Bringing young people to the forefront of international climate negotiations and ensuring meaningful youth engagement was one of the key priorities of the joint UK-Italy Presidency of the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference, commonly known as COP26. In this spirit, a range of youth-led and youth-oriented climate events were held to support the negotiations, bringing together hundreds of youth climate leaders to highlight the importance of intergenerational equity, share their personal experiences of climate change, and call for policy and mindset shifts, in order to address the climate crisis. In response, high-level dignitaries, including COP26 President Alok Sharma and UNFCCC Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa, recognised the valuable contributions of the youth climate movement and reiterated their commitment to meaningful youth engagement.
Despite the dedication of young people to urgent, ambitious, and equitable climate action, there remain key obstacles to meaningful youth engagement. Most notably, the complex dynamics of climate governance may limit the influence and impact of young people in reality. Furthermore, concerns of youth-washing and tokenism pose a significant challenge to the credibility and effectiveness of processes under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), fuelling doubt as to whether youth climate advocacy can make a tangible difference to the negotiation outcomes. Finally, even as the youth climate movement gains momentum, it is worth reflecting on whether, and to what extent, certain youth voices and perspectives in climate governance are privileged over others, and what it takes to actually achieve climate justice.
Moving forward, therefore, a deeper and more critical examination of the role of young people in climate governance is required. What does it truly mean to give youth a seat at the table, and how we will collectively get there? Building on a youth-led UCL workshop and public panel event, this memo discusses both obstacles and opportunities for greater youth engagement in global climate governance: Policy Memo: Climate Governance and Youth Engagement - Opportunities, Challenges and the Way Forward [PDF]
Event Video: Giving Youth a Seat at the Table in Climate Negotiations
