Young people – victims or protagonists in climate change issues?

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Climatic context

The climate crisis is increasing the vulnerability of most forms of life. The transformation of the Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, biosphere and nutrient cycles caused by the use of fossil fuels is now beyond the boundaries of a “safe operating space”[1].

According to a World Meteorological Organization (WMO) report, the global average temperature in 2020 was about 1.2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. According to climate experts, an increase of no more than 1.5 degrees would limit the worst effects of the climate crisis.[2] Experts also show that the 1.5 degree threshold will be exceeded even if fossil fuel use were to be completely stopped now.

Recent years have seen more and more extreme weather events globally, with hurricanes, wildfires and heat waves. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that between 2030-2050, climate change could cause 250,000 deaths annually from malnutrition, malaria and heat stress.[3] Moreover, we are currently witnessing an accelerated decline in biodiversity, with irreversible effects on the natural world. Thus, the phenomenon of “climate justice” has become an important issue since the 2000s, highlighting the disproportionate impact of climate change on some poor groups and categories who have contributed significantly less to its causes but bear its effects.

Within this global context, we consider the practice of climate activism from the perspective of children and young people which has to some extent shifted the procedural direction of human rights from an individual-centred approach to a holistic approach that is more inclusive of human-nature connections.[4] The international mobilisation inspired by the Fridays For Future movement and initiated by Greta Thunberg has surprised the world in terms of the ability of children and young people to take a strong and determined stand on such a complex issue that threatens life on Earth, making them the most prominent voices in the fight against climate change. Moreover, they have redefined perceptions of the impact of their action at the political level by challenging existing international legislation including the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

How are these rights respected when the effects of climate change are devastating children and the communities in which they live? How are the rights of future generations protected when the main source of pollution – the consumption of fossil fuels – is not being stopped? These questions are unanswered, especially as UN documents and monitoring mechanisms tend to focus strongly on the ‘protection’ of children rather than their status as active and potentially political individuals.[5] In this scenario, in the absence of concrete action to protect against the effects of climate change by the responsible authorities and structures, children and young people can only be victims.

However, what makes it novel, innovative and promising is their position. Through their actions, on the one hand, hundreds of thousands of children and young people have demonstrated skills in understanding and addressing the climate emergency, collaborative skills, systemic, ethical, forward-looking, critical thinking skills, etc. – which are also included in the set of key sustainability competencies defined by UNESCO.[6] and on the other hand, to take responsibility for their own future, to be actors and not spectators in the evolution of climate change. The need to (re)build and sustain climate activism as a means of empowerment, generational transformation and paradigm shift regarding the role of children/minors in the social and political space.

Romanian context

On a more specific note, we address the applicability of climate activism in Romania through a national project targeting young people and authorities in 13 small towns who are empowered to lead their own communities from vulnerability to resilience. In addition, it proposes a new cause for climate activism in the Romanian context, namely, adaptation to climate change. The Resilient Cities project takes as its central reference the concept of climate injustice, recognising that the most vulnerable members of society have to bear the impacts of climate change despite being least responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions that have generated the climate crisis. Also central is the creation of educational contexts for young people to raise awareness of the climate threat, what the scientific outlook is for 2030, 2050 and how they, together with the local community, can identify ways to adapt to climate disruption.

Especially in disadvantaged areas, such as the 13 cities in the “Resilient Cities” project where massive coal, gas and oil exploitation has been carried out, the priority is not to focus on reducing their individual resource consumption in order to reduce (mitigation) greenhouse gases because local challenges often limit their access to strictly necessary anyway, but rather on adaptation (adaptation), identifying local resources and assets that could make them more resilient to events such as floods, droughts, heat waves, wildfires, etc. Moreover, from a Buen Vivir perspective , to find ways at community level to preserve and build social links in harmony with nature.

From practice on the ground, this discourse initially seemed of little relevance, especially among young people. The lack of local opportunities, both educational, recreational and later employment, discourages young people from planning for a possible future in the city where they grew up, but rather, leads them to look to larger cities for such opportunities. But what caught the young people’s attention was the scenario in which places that now seem dreamy, the metropolises that bring hope for a better future, could in fact become extremely difficult to live in by 2030, 2050, in particular because of rising temperatures. Asphalt, cement, tall buildings, different types of roofs, crowds of heat-trapping cars make for a difference of sometimes more than 5 degrees, even 10 degrees between urban and rural areas, a phenomenon known as “urban heat island”. Drawing parallels with smaller cities, young people resonated with the fact that in such scenarios, their cities are better positioned, with easier access to and direct use of certain resources.

Taking the example of the pandemic period, through a sensory exercise “Map of the Senses”, we invited young people to name those positive aspects of their city through the 5 senses. What they see, what they taste, what they smell, what they touch, what they hear in their city and what they enjoy. It was surprising for them to look at it from this angle and realize how many positive things they can enjoy in their city that don’t require cost, but rather, a bit of attention to the available but invaluable resources.

Pilot project in developing climate activism

Our experience of working in the 13 small vulnerable towns in Romania has shown us that the development of climate activism among young people requires a sustained pace of awareness-raising activities, and then slowly, initiatives and actions can be designed for the community.

The structure of the approach had as its main methodology the Design Thinking (DT) process , a “collaborative design” process that seeks innovative, different solutions to complex problems in contexts of uncertainty. DT is a “human-centred” methodology, which lends itself to the design of empathetic activist actions, focused on the needs, fears, motivations that can be identified among youth and community actors. The 6 stages of the method (Empathy, Defining, Ideating, Prototyping, Testing and Scaling) are supported by the integration of non-formal methods that bring a particular contribution to raising awareness of young people on climate change issues, developing motivational attitudes and involvement in their community.

In parallel, the piloting of climate activism among more than 360 young people in Romania took into account an evaluation framework with two main directions in their training as climate activists:

  • the set of key competences that equips them with a palette of “8 cross-cutting competences for sustainability“, enabling them to understand and engage constructively and responsibly in the complex world in which they live[7] ;
  • level of participation, an adaptation of Roger Hart’s model[8] in the context of climate activism, which starts from the premise that young people climb the highest ‘rungs‘ on the ‘ladder of participation‘. Step 1 is represented by a youth involvement without understanding the objectives of the action and step 8 by an active involvement where they co-decide the type of action and invite the community to take part in achieving the objectives.

In the field and in working with various groups of young people, we have taken into account the fact that they think less abstractly than adults, especially those aged just over 14. Thus, the participation processes were based as much as possible on their concrete experiences. Through non-formal methods, their participation was progressive and it was intended that they first become aware of and learn the key concepts in climate issues and then position themselves according to their understanding. Each intervention in the 13 cities used non-formal methods to invite young people to access and explore from steps 3 and 4 on the participation ladder which involve consulting young people and making decisions together about their further learning and developing local climate activism. In the next stage of awareness raising, the context was created for young people to interact with adults on climate change issues to encourage up the ladder of participation and support young people in intergenerational collaboration with adults. Part of the educational approach of the project is to involve a representative number of each city group to achieve the highest form of climate activism which, even more than autonomous action by young people without adults, is to take action whereby young activists succeed in engaging adults and local authorities to take action to increase climate resilience in each city.

Returning to the main question, but addressed in the Romanian context, the voice of children and young people in Romania is not yet heard or critical enough about the direction of policies and measures related to mitigation and, especially, adaptation to the effects of climate change. And it’s not their fault. The journey through the 13 cities showed us that young people are receptive, they care about the future, they certainly don’t want to be victims, but they need support – particularly from NGOs – to be protagonists.

 


lustration: “Women and Climate Change, Georgetown University report”

[1] Pathways to 1.5 and 2°C warming based on observational and geological constraints” Goodwin et al,

(2018) 11 Nature Geoscience 102;

[2] World on brink of climate ‘abyss’ as temperature rise continues: UN leadership“19 April 2021, available at: https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/04/1090072;

[3] Climate change and health” WHO, 1 February 2018, available at: https://www.who.int/news-room/factsheets/detail/climate-change-and-health;

[4] Climate skills”, Aoife Daly, 2021;

[5] Between protection and participation: rethinking children’s rights to participate in street protests, online spaces and schools”, Nishiyama , 2020, 19 Journal of Human Rights 501;

[6] Education for Sustainable Development Goals: Learning Objectives/”8 cross-cutting competences for sustainability“, UNESCO, 2017, English version available: http://dezvoltaredurabila.gov.ro/web/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/manual-UNESCO.pdf);

[7] Education for Sustainable Development Goals: Learning Objectives/”8 cross-cutting competences for sustainability“, UNESCO, 2017, English version available: http://dezvoltaredurabila.gov.ro/web/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/manual-UNESCO.pdf);

[8] Children’sParticipation: From Tokenism to Citizenship”, 1992.

Ana-Maria Ilie
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