Public opinion, explained.
In some parts of the world, the climate movement remains strong, creative and ever-tenacious (Markus Spiske/Unsplash)
With the world rapidly losing sight of Paris Agreement targets, let’s bring back the fight.
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What happened to the youth climate movement?What happened to the youth climate movement?
I was 20 years old when the School Strikes for Climate were at their peak in 2019. It was a thrilling time to be a young person. The energy was radical and exciting. We were seeing our future being systematically destroyed, but we also saw millions of young people and allied “older people” speaking out against this internationally.
There was momentum. In the Lowy Poll of Australian attitudes toward international issues, concern about climate change among 18-29-year-olds peaked in 2019 with 81% seeing “global warming as a serious and pressing problem”. By last year, this same measure had fallen to 73% in the age bracket – still far higher than the lull of 2012, but markedly lower, and closer to the experience of more than a decade earlier in 2008. (You can see the results by clicking the right arrow on the chart below.)
Where has the momentum gone? It seems the youth climate movement has dwindled dramatically despite the feeling big business and government are paying only lip-service to the environmental danger. For the most part, I think young people have been preoccupied – and validly so.
The cost of living is hitting many young people hard. I for one, as a PhD student, have had to pick up casual work to make ends meet – working, studying, advocating, and doing all sorts of side projects to try and build a career-worthy profile for myself. I can imagine many of my peers feel similar and just don’t have the time, or the energy, to dedicate to the climate like they used to.
This sentiment perhaps is reflected in the Lowy Poll, too. More young people are inclined to see climate change as a problem to be addressed, but agree “we can deal with the problem gradually by taking steps that are low in cost”, up from 18% in 2019 to 23% last year.
Young people are dealing less with the radical “outside the system” work, the rough and tumble of grassroots activism.
Other issues are also competing for attention. The Black Summer bushfires that ravaged Australia in 2019-20 gave way to the experience of the Covid pandemic, the consolidation of #metoo campaigns, Black Lives Matter protests, debates around the return of Donald Trump and the hard right, the aftermath of the 7 October attack on Israel and war in Gaza, and other issues beside.
An overarching challenge, I think, is the celebrity-status/micro-influencer game that many of my peers attempt. Having a platform for climate advocacy or any other campaign is a great thing, but too often it promotes the individual rather than the cause.
Similarly, the climate movement has become increasingly career focused. Young people are dealing less with the radical, “outside the system” work required, instead involving themselves in social enterprises or producing podcasts, rather than joining the rough and tumble of grassroots activism. This individualisation, alongside the hiatus experienced during Covid, has reduced the level of knowledge-sharing required to hand the baton to the next wave of young activists. The “original” generation of school-strikers, now approaching our mid-late twenties, are occupied by the more mundane challenges of work, rent, and adult relationships.
Climate change has also lost its “sex appeal” as a topic. In 2019, speaking about the climate was radical, it was against the system. But the absorption of climate action by government and business makes it feel like we are not really “fighting” like we used to. The deceptive nature of greenwashing makes the fight seem unfair. We must reinstill in young people that fighting spirit.
Where to now?
Aside from grassroots movements, United Nations bodies such as YOUNGO – the official youth constituency of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – offer tangible ways for young people to shape the world’s climate change policies. So too, roles such as the Youth Climate Champion, who represents young people at each COP climate conference. And on the front lines, for example in the Pacific Islands, the climate movement remains strong, creative, respected, and ever-tenacious.
As our world gradually loses sight of its aim to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, part of the work is to bring back the fight.
About the author
Isabelle Zhu-Maguire
Isabelle Zhu-Maguire is a PhD student at the Australian National University.
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