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At the Glasgow COP26 summit in November 2021, a number of foundations working on climate mitigation met with members of the UN Secretary General’s Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change, to discuss the funding of youth-led climate action. This study follows on from that meeting, and is intended as a resource that describes the funding challenges commonly experienced by youth-led climate justice initiatives along with an analysis of the philanthropic funding available to these movements now. It also offers some thoughts and action points to help funders to support youth-led movements effectively.
The study was overseen by a steering committee comprising young climate leaders from around the world, and the work was sponsored by the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation. Research support and project management was provided by philanthropy sector consultancy The Hour Is Late.
The views expressed on this website and in the resources should not be interpreted as official positions of the youth steering committee or CIFF.
Steering committee members
Archana is a UN Secretary General’s Youth Advisor on Climate Change. She has experience on research and advocacy on Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities and Climate Action. She is also a member of Indigenous Solidarity Working Group of YOUNGO (the official Children and Youth Constituency of UNFCCC). She works as Research Officer with Vasundhara, Odisha, an action, research and policy advocacy organization working on the rights of Indigenous Peoples, biodiversity conservation, sustainable livelihood and climate action in India. Archana is also on the Board of Land Rights Now, an international alliance campaign to secure Indigenous and community land rights globally.
@SorengArchana
Ernest is the co-coordinator for 350 Fiji, a regional youth-led climate change network, driven by young climate leaders.
@ErnestKGibson
Nathan is a 23-year-old climate justice & LGBTQI2S+ activist. Nathan is one of seven members of Antonio Guterres’ Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change. He is a 776 Foundation fellow where he works at mobilising funding and resources to youth climate justice movements worldwide. In 2019, he founded Generation Climate Europe – the largest coalition of youth-led networks on climate and environmental issues at the European level. Nathan was also the co-chair of the youth pre-COP26 and is a former Board member of the European Environmental Bureau and Youth and Environment Europe. In 2020, he was nominated with five other young European for the “Young European of the Year 2020” award. He graduated from Sciences Po Grenoble in France and completed a masters degree in environmental policy and regulation at the London School of Economics.
@Nathan_Metenier
Nisreen is a climate activist and junior negotiator at intergovernmental climate change platforms with experience across a range of environmental topics, and she was part of the social movement that brought about democratic change in Sudan.
@NisreenElsaim
Paloma is a young climate-activist from Brasília. She is a Youth Advisor to the UN Secretary-General as part of the UN SG’s Youth Advisory Group on Climate Changes. She’s legal advisor at Instituto Socioambiental, on socioenvironmental rights, including climate, indigenous and traditional peoples, being responsible for pushing the youth perspective into the organization. She coordinated the Working Group of Climate in the youth-led organization Engajamundo and the Brazilian youth delegations to COP24th, COP25th and 2019 UN LAC Climate-Week. As a member of the Abu Dhabi Youth Voices (#Super30), alongside 30 different Climate Activists from different parts of the Globe, she supported the UN Youth Envoy’s Officer on the delivery of the 1st UN Youth Climate Summit. On the same occasion, she participated in the opening of the Climate Action Summit, alongside the UN Secretary-General and the activist Greta Thunberg.
@pcopaloma
Sophia is an American climate activist. She has helped organize nationwide strikes and is the founder of Climate Cardinals, an international nonprofit working to translate climate information into over 100 languages.
@SophiaKianni
Vladislav Kaim is a young Moldovan economist and climate action and sustainability advocate with vast experience at the UN level, as well as on multiple national and local platforms in Eastern European region. His main fields of advocacy have been green jobs for youth, just transition, green and sustainable economic growth and reforms to the multilateral climate finance agenda.
In July 2020, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres appointed Mr Kaim to be one of his seven Youth Advisors on Climate Change and oversee the implementation of his Climate Strategy. Vladislav is also the contact point on green jobs at YOUNGO, official youth constituency to the UNFCCC, and 2021 IMF Youth Fellow.
He is the holder of the 2015 Best Moldovan Student in Diaspora distinction and 2021 finalist of the Swedish King’s Scholarship for Value-Based Leadership.
@VladislavKaim
Research team members
Felix has spent many years involved in the youth climate space as an advocate for climate justice. He is a doctoral candidate at the University of British Columbia where he is critically studying questions of power and technology around the energy transition. He is also the Treasurer of the Board of Youth4Nature, one of the largest global youth-led NGOs working at the intersection of climate and nature. He is fully committed to bringing power shifts within the climate space and works through various mediums – scholarly work, activism, art – to enact this change.
Harriet is co-founder of The Hour Is Late, a consultancy working with philanthropic and civil society movements to drive social and political change. She has 15 years experience of leading successful grantmaking programmes on behalf of foundations and individual donors, with a particular focus on climate change, the land use sector and human rights. Her current or previous trustee and steering committee roles include the UK Environmental Funders Network, The Iris Project and Students Organising for Sustainability-UK.
Jon is director and co-founder of The Hour Is Late, a consultancy working with funders and civil society movements to drive social and political change. He co-founded the U.K. Environmental Funders Network, and has served in trustee or steering committee roles with several other funder affinity groups including the U.S. Environmental Grantmakers Association, the Ariadne network and the European Environmental Funders Group. Jon is a trustee of 360Giving, and his research and analysis on the allocation of environmental grants is often featured in philanthropy sector publications.
José is a indigenous activist from the Amazon region in Brazil, he studied Industrial Engineering in college and for 10 years worked with traditional and indigenous communities in order to generate income based on fair trade and nature conservancy. Nowadays he creates online content on @zenarede about the Amazon and Indigenous People. He loves to travel, play on the river, share stories, photograph and eat good food.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank people from the following organisations who contributed their valuable time and insights to this study.
Suggestions for ways in which the resources shared here could be developed can be sent to info@youthclimatejusticestudy.org
Midia India
