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Over the last few decades, the imperatives of bringing the climate crisis to the forefront of global concerns have been intensified through diplomacy and collective efforts. Since the Paris Agreement in 2015, more than 195 nations as members to the agreement pledged on taking national and international measures to curb emissions and supporting other member countries in addressing effects of climate crisis and global warming.
Illustration by The Geostrata
Regarded as the most powerful pathway to institutionalise global environmental governance, the history of environmental politics has witnessed numerous high level meetings such as the COP3, 1997 in Kyoto and COP15, 2009 in Copenhagen.
This also reflects an inclination towards statist discourses in the realm of international diplomacy. Furthermore, liberal institutionalists see these global forums and summits as providing ground for the coordination of solutions to self evident collective action problems that affect the global community at large and are part of a broader process of multilateral governance.
This year’s United Nations Climate Summit, popularly termed as Conference of Parties 2024 in Baku, Azerbaijan started with a fanfare and once again ended with critics calling it a disservice to the climate cause and its inability to respond to climate concerns experienced by poor countries.
Long heralded as a critical forum for global collaboration on climate change, Conference of Parties (COP) organised by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was intended to create space for world leaders, civil society experts and young climate activists to converge and chart pathways toward climate solutions.
However, the climate conferences over the years have been marred by various issues, posing questions against its credibility and relevance to mitigate the climate crisis.
Climate experts have raised concerns about the conferences being reduced to talking shops where conflict of interest between the parties prevent execution of any real solutions. Furthermore, the nature and characteristics of participation of actors in these conferences have been marginalising concerns of smaller, developing countries and several social groups, chiefly the indigenous community and women.
The successive discussions in this article aim towards critically examining the role of young delegates and youth activists in global climate forums. The article aims to explore the evolving role of youth participation against the backdrop of structural issues present within the COP process. The discussion will briefly highlight the challenges inherent in the nature of youth climate activism in climate conferences and will ultimately conclude with actionable recommendations, advocating for a paradigm shift required to bring tangible outcomes.
An important aspect of such climate conferences has been the growing involvement of youth activists and young delegates in panel discussions, workshops and social media awareness and advocacy campaigns. Enshrined in Article 6 of the convention of the Paris Agreement, the role of non-state actors has been recognised as highly critical in ensuring the efficiency, effectiveness and equity of climate change governance.
Youth involvement in global climate movements, especially global conferences peaked after events like Fridays for Future, inspired by the Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg. It also recalibrated the attention of social media and advocacy groups in capturing the importance of young voices in climate related discussions.
This shift in the perceptions should be juxtaposed against the rise of alter-activists, a term referring to a set of political-cultural practices emerging among young, largely urban and upper middle class demographic which represents a mode of activism based on lived experiences and processes, a commitment to horizontal networked organisations centred around direct action and use of information and communication technology.
Ever since the 1990’s, UNFCCC conference attendance have mobilised youth actors to climate change governance and helped them overcome barriers to their participation. However, within the UNFCCC, youth participation faces several constraints including lack of institutional memory, lack of representation of young individuals from marginalised sections, information and power asymmetries.
A closer examination of the rising wave of youth engagement in these conferences reveals a harsh reality of these summits as breeding grounds of performative activism, often lacking in measurable impact.
One of the key challenges in harnessing the value of youth participation in climate forums like Conference of Parties are the structural limitations inherent in the functioning of these bodies. These conferences are often dense with negotiations, jargon-heavy sessions and political posturing which often alienate the very communities which are most affected by climate change. The heterogeneity of youth where age intersects varied social, economic and ethnic identities is often reduced to a select few voices which claim to share universal knowledge.
The contemporary structure of COP is burdened by rules and limitations that not only disempowers but also subsequently exacerbates challenges faced by marginalised groups to access and utilize these forums. This gets compounded by the barriers to influence intergovernmental negotiations due to the persisting hierarchy between the state actors and the non-state actors.
The power asymmetry in state and non-state actors is also evident from the limited influence of youth delegations on the language and commitments made in the Lima Call for Climate Action, a precursor to the Paris Agreement.
Reports published by World Resource Institute and United Nations Environment program have repeatedly highlighted the urgency of state action and enforcement of pledges. Youth engagement in that regard, though attracted media attention, has failed to hold governments accountable for their monitoring and mitigation measures.
Lack of resources and expertise to navigate the technicalities of climate finance, mitigation and adaptation frameworks discussed at climate conferences have reduced the representation of youth as numerical record and hollow rhetoric. While organisations like YOUNGO attempts to marry training and professional development of youth with ideological visions of radical changes, this professionalisation of youth comes at the risk of co-option.
Young participants often become victims to instrumentalisation and youth washing in major global events as more often than not their energy and value are reduced to volunteer work and faux inclusivity.
To prevent the conference of parties from devolving into a platform for governments, businesses and international organisations to evade from hard commitments, it is the need of the hour ensure capacity building measures to enhance technical contributions by young minds. A strong focus has to be diverted towards advancing localized solutions for climate issues.
Knowledge creation has to be visualised as a bottoms up process instead of efforts concentrating solely on global visibility. Youth representatives have to be proactive in pushing for direct investments in community resilience projects and should aim towards innovating the execution and monitoring process of the climate deals, especially in the context of global south.
BY MANISHA
TEAM GEOSTRATA
Well researched piece