Applying a leverage points framework to the United Nations climate negotiations: The (dis)empowerment of youth participants

Abstract

Young people are both among the generations to be most affected by climate change and critical advocates for climate action. In the face of growing urgency surrounding the climate crisis, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has become an important institutional framework for political progress. We developed a community-based participatory action research project centered on youth involved in the COP climate negotiations. A "leverage points" approach guided our research; this paper is the first time the framework has been applied in an international negotiations context. Our findings point to the structural power, networks, and paradigms that youth might engage with for international climate justice work. We identify actionable leverage points through which youth organizers might increase their social power in the COP process to bring about climate action. Many of these leverage points are rooted in dynamics of power, which we expand upon and connect to broader literature. Moving forward, these findings can benefit and inform the strategies of youth as they participate in the COP process.

European Leadership and European Youth in the Climate Change Regime Complex

“…In the same line, Soo Ah Kwon (2019, p. 937) demonstrates how international youth summits have been summits "on youth" rather than "by youth." A few studies also investigate youth as participants in international climate conferences, especially at UNFCCC COPs (Thew, 2018;Thew et al, 2020Thew et al, , 2021Yona et al, 2020), sometimes with a specific focus on indigenous youth (MacKay et al, 2020;Ritchie, 2021). These studies represent a knowledgeable first step toward questioning the political influence of youth in formal processes.…”

Az éghajlatváltozással kapcsolatos perek jelene és jövőjének lehetséges irányai

“…Erre példa Neubauer és társai Németország elleni ügye, 53 vagy a Duaerte Augostinho és társai EU tagállamai és társai elleni, EJEB előtt folyamatban lévő ügye vagy a norvég sarkvidéki olaj ügy is. Harminchárom olyan éghajlati ügyben, amelyben a felperesek emberi jogi jogsérelmekre hivatkoznak -ami egyébként a 2021 előtt világszerte benyújtott ügyek 26%-a -olyan felperesek vettek részt, akik 18 év alatti gyermekek, gyermekeket képviselő nem kormányzati szervezetek vagy gyermekek egy csoportja (Yona et al, 2020). A fiatalok bírósági úton próbálják a kormányokat felelősségre vonni az éghajlatváltozás hatásaiért, a mostani és a jövő nemzedékek számára egyaránt.…”

“You Need a Month’s Holiday Just to Get over It!” Exploring Young People’s Lived Experiences of the UN Climate Change Negotiations

“…These quotes go some way to acknowledging that younger generations require investment and empowerment from incumbent power holders if they are to play a key role in tackling climate change, which recent studies of youth participation in the UNFCCC support [3,4]. Due to the temporal nature of the climate crisis, young people are arguably Sustainability 2022, 14, 4259 2 of 21 the living generation with the most at stake as, if decision-makers do not take sufficient action to bend the emissions curve now and steer the world away from its current course, it will be the younger generation who are left to pick up the pieces [5,6]. To ensure that low-carbon transitions are intergenerationally as well as intragenerationally just, youth participants must be able to participate as equals in collective decision-making processes, working alongside older generations to identify potential conflicts between generational interests, values, and needs over time.…”

“…A small number of studies have turned their attention to YOUNGO, showing that youth participants attending UNFCCC conferences lack resources, recognition, and political capital and struggle to effect change, resulting in a pervasive sense of powerlessness and frustration [3,4,6,11]. Nevertheless, youth participation in the UNFCCC continues to grow, with the latest available participation data from the UNFCCC Secretariat showing YOUNGO to be the fourth largest nongovernmental constituency (making up 5.4% of attendees), though still much smaller than Environmental NGOs at 37.6%, Researchers at 27.1%, and Businesses at 15.8% [12].…”

“…To address these questions, we turn to the Youth Studies literature for guidance. Where previous studies of YOUNGO have drawn upon political science, sociological, and philosophical literature to situate youth participation within the broader context of environmental governance, asking what their experiences can tell us about climate change governance [3,4,6,7,11], this paper asks instead what their experiences can tell us about how young people experience UNFCCC conferences, the physical and psychological barriers they face, and how their participation could be improved.…”