Why Youth?

In 2022, we find ourselves at a critical juncture. We are witnessing an increase in climate change-induced extreme weather events such as floods and heat domes, with a projected eight years remaining to mitigate the current scientific trajectory consensus.¹ It is estimated that a child born in 2020 will experience a two- to seven-fold increase in extreme weather events in their lifetime compared to those born in 1960, even if emission reduction pledges are met.²  This shocking reality will have immense impacts on this next generation’s development, health, and well-being.

It is well recognized that climate-induced environmental changes are disproportionately affecting regions and communities on a systematic level who are already marginalized (due to gender, income, ethnicity, age, education, and occupation) and who are least responsible for greenhouse gas emissions.³ Therefore, on account of the disproportionate impact of climate change that youth and future generations will endure, youth possess a powerful moral authority.^3,4 Youth have highlighted the importance of an intersectional approach to climate change stemming from a public health and human rights lens in an effort to create more effective, just, and cost-efficient action. This is imperative to ensure that the most vulnerable populations, including rural communities, children, the elderly, and Indigenous Peoples, are climate-resilient.⁵

Youth have been consistently sidelined by way of deep-rooted norms such as adultism, defined as the systematic subordination of youth and children who have little access to goods, resources, and power to make decisions.⁶ In the arena of climate action, this belief system is being overturned. As of 2022, 24% of the world’s population is between the ages of 10-24 years old.⁷ This generation’s voice must and will be heard as youth globally will inherit the earth. The following section provides a rationale for why youth are best positioned to initiate, enact, and sustain meaningful climate action transformation and hold the key to a sustainable future.

Traits of Youth

With less investment in the dominant culture, youth have a unique ability to challenge the existing status quo from a fresher lens, calling authority structures and experts into question.  Youth tend to have an inherent desire to explore, challenge, and envision new ways of being and doing. Ilona Dougherty, a researcher at the University of Waterloo studying how young people can influence the adults in their lives, shares: “Young people are literally wired to challenge the status quo, to think outside the box. Their brains are really amazing and they have a lot to offer us.”⁸

Different from adult brains, the brains of youth, from the beginnings of puberty to 25 years of age, are in an increased period of neuroplasticity, which is the brain’s ability to change and adapt in response to experience.⁹ This presents a unique window of opportunity to influence positive and negative behaviours that will be carried into adulthood and enables youth to be collaborative, creative, observant, curious, risk-takers, challengers, visionaries, and action-oriented.¹⁰ We will explore these unique attributes that emerging adults possess and how they can serve as a valuable source of untapped socio-economic potential which may, in part, explain why youth are on the frontlines of the climate change movement.

Collaborative 

Peers are of the utmost importance to youth’s lives due to a heightened awareness of social stimuli. Adolescents pay more attention to cues, ideas, and opinions of other people than in any other stage of life.⁹ This is then heightened for those raised in an age of technology and social media who have an unparalleled reach to an international network of youth.

Creative

It has been found that creativity peaks in the decade of one’s 20s.^12,13 As our brain develops in wisdom and understanding over the years, it lacks the same capacity for innovation as it does in its earlier years of development. Epstein et al. asserts that one explanation for this may be that youth are less confined by societal expectations and order, demonstrated by a decline in conformity scores.¹³

Observant and Curious

A heightened state of attentiveness and environmental awareness is a key feature of youth’s brains.^10,12 This is driven by the aforementioned prioritization of attention paid to their peers’ cues, ideas, and opinions. Young people are distinctively curious – desiring to acquire new information. Millennials and Generation Z are experiencing a prolonged period of life saturated in the learning environment, with a greater emphasis on achieving higher education than previous generations. Technology and the shift to remote learning have opened doors for youth to explore self-directed learning and access resources from all corners of the globe as made possible by the internet.¹⁴

Experimenters, Visionaries and Risk-takers

Youth have a grand willingness to explore new opportunities and experience change.¹⁵ In this period of neuroplasticity, young people may embrace uncertainty. It has been noted that risk-taking is vital for exploring one’s identity and builds autonomy and self-confidence.¹⁶ Youth are open to new ways of doing things; without the limiting blinders on, as a result of past failures, youth are idealistic, optimistic and are unafraid to try and make mistakes. Although idealism often carries a negative connotation, this unique ability of youth to dream up unrestrained possibilities makes them critical players as system changers and innovators. Leaning into experimentation challenges youth to think for themselves and call so-called experts and rigid systems into question.

Challenging the Status Quo

Youth are also not as heavily invested in the existing structures and ways of doing things. Therefore, youth have the freedom to be drivers in the reformation of the old system and ways of doing things to make way for the emergence of new systems.¹⁷ An expression of this is youth paving the way for social movements around responding to climate change, critiquing the status quo of climate inaction, and demanding system reform from their politicians. Many argue that globalization through social media has allowed youth to tear down conventional authority structures and denounce so-called experts.²

Action-Oriented

Finally, youth’s drive to action is key to seeing fruit from all the attributes above. One can be curious and innovative, but there must be a drive to turn ideas into actuality. Today’s youth are often criticized for their impatience. On the contrary, taking a strength-based viewpoint, young people are eager to see clearly the tangible positive impacts of their work.¹⁸