Young people’s emerging concerns on the major sustainability challenges of the Anthropocene should provide a thematic roadmap to guide environmental sustainability and social-ecological transformation researchers (Fig. 1). Here we present our account of the major themes arising in international meetings for youth voices, such as the UN Youth Climate Action Summit (https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/youth-in-action) and the UN post-2030 CBD youth forums. We support our conclusions with the results of the recent Global Shapers Survey (GSS) conducted by the World Economic Forum (n = 30,000) [18].
Youth and global change
The GSS showed that “climate change/destruction of nature” was ranked as the most serious global issue with 49.9% of votes, a trend uniform across age groups [18]. Numerous youth-led initiatives supported by international institutions aim to tackle and raise awareness of the environmental crisis and climate change, including the UN Summer of Solutions, the UN Climate Reboot Troops, the UNESCO Man and Biosphere (MAB) youth network, and the Global Youth Biodiversity Network (GBYN). Grassroots movements have recently drawn global attention to the climate crisis, with youth climate strike mobilization statistics hitting an all-time high in September 2019, with an estimated 6 million strikers worldwide lead by youth organizations.
Youth, nature and biodiversity
Destruction of nature is ranked first as a global youth concern [18]. Youth have worked to be represented within major multilateral environmental agreements such as the CBD. In 2012, GYBN advocated to include a youth-specific clause in the Conference of the Parties meeting in Hyderabad (COP11) [19]. This clause promotes youth involvement in all stages of the planning and the implementation of national biodiversity strategies (COP11 Decision XI/9). Youth declarations published across youth networks [19] speak of the need to address the biodiversity and the climate crisis as one systemic issue, calling for transformative change which holds nature-based solutions at its centre.
Youth, social justice, fairness and equity
The GSS showed that “Large-scale conflict/wars” and “inequality (income, discrimination)” were ranked as the second and third most important global issues, with 39.10 and 30.9% of votes, respectively [18]. Youth demand that implementation of sustainability agendas must guarantee equitable and fair benefit sharing and be sensitive to the global south context. Sustainability initiatives must also empower and engage local communities and Indigenous peoples in all phases of planning and implementation. Additionally, there are calls for the mainstreaming of gender and minority equity, diversity and inclusivity within all sectors involved in sustainability policy planning and implementation [19].
Youth, representation and power
The GSS ranked “government accountability and transparency/corruption” as a primary concern within their own countries (46.10% of votes) [18]. Multiple youth forums in 2019 stressed the lack of political will to implement concrete and transformative actions needed to address sustainability crises. There is also a clear call across youth organizations to increase representation of young stakeholders with capacity to influence policy and decision making. According to a 2019 study by the Inter-parliamentary Union, only 2.2% of members of parliament (MPs) are below the age of 30 worldwide, and a push to increase representation is seen as central to promoting youth decision making capacity and influence worldwide [20].
Youth, innovation and technology
In addition to deeper systemic approaches, youth have been protagonist of innovation and technology-based solutions to tackle global sustainability challenges. Notable initiatives like the “Summer of Solutions” and the “Climate Reboot Troops”, under the auspices of the UN Envoy on Youth, have kick-started youth-led projects using open data and tech concepts to solve a local environmental crisis unique to each location and community [21]. Youth discussions have also urged caution in this sector, pointing out that techno-fix pathways should not be prioritized as “silver-bullet” solutions to sustainability challenges, opting for deeper systemic approaches with economic, social and ecological transformation at their centre [19].
Youth, research and education
Education and outreach have been raised as central to achieving sustainability outcomes, stressing the need to fund and implement capacitation, upskilling and awareness raising schemes across the globe. Youth reflect a need for an education and research agenda that contemplates diverse knowledge systems, that promotes critical thinking and addresses power asymmetries. Additionally, youth call for an increase in cross-sectorial and interdisciplinarity platforms, which allow for emergent transdisciplinary collaborations and approaches to sustainability challenges. In the academic context, more than 80% of youth in the GSS disagreed with the statement “Academics and scientific experts should not be involved in politics” [18], reflecting a need to close divides between sectorial silos, facilitate evidence-based policy and address the research-implementation gap.
Although we have presented these six themes as separate, underlying them is a holistic mindset underpinned by two key concepts: systems thinking and transdisciplinary (Fig. 1). In our personal experience facilitating youth forums, millennials are very comfortable dealing with overlapping layers of complexity, systems and networks. In the minds of many youth the environmental crisis cannot be separated from key drivers like inequality or poor governance. Therefore, youth movements are demanding from world leaders a mindset that can follow these complexities, and can provide perhaps not a solution, but an integrated “crisis-management” roadmap that aims for and is fully committed to systemic change. Youth are demanding that these systemic changes address the core of our development models, including the values and principles which underpin them. In the same way, transdisciplinary and cross-sectorial efforts must create new languages and approaches [22], which are able to address the connections between inequality and unequal distribution of resources, concentration of power, failing governance systems and institutions, and the unprecedented environmental degradation, poverty and risks to young people and future generations.
Last but not least, despite the simplistic presentation of these themes, it is important to acknowledge that youth are not a uniform group, and that Global North narratives have traditionally dominated global youth discourse [8, 18]. Thus, the importance of any of these concerns is strongly dependent on socio-economic and cultural context, which is in itself a research gap which needs addressing [8].