Youth and the climate crisis

The world needs to listen to young people

Youth across the Arctic are seeing their world change—and quickly. Temperatures are rising. Snow, ice and species are disappearing, and whole communities are having to pick up and move due to coastal erosion or permafrost thaw. None of these climate crisis impacts resulted from young people’s choices or actions, yet this generation will be forced to reckon with the consequences.

Too often, the voices of youth are left out of important conversations. Governments and companies continue to act as though young people’s ideas, opinions and proposed solutions don’t matter. Yet in a 2021 survey of 10,000 peopled aged 16 to 25, almost half said negative feelings about the climate affected their daily lives. Youth who live in the Arctic will be—in fact, already are—the most affected by the impacts of climate change.

For the past several years, we’ve tried to give Arctic youth a voice in the pages of The Circle. What follows are three different perspectives from youth who are seeing first-hand how the climate crisis is affecting their communities, livelihoods and environment. As we look back at the past 30 years of WWF’s Arctic Programme, we want to also look forward.