Thirteenth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

The so-called Youth Climate Movement (YCM) started as a coincidence of several factors such as the 2018 IPCC report, absence, during the COP24, of the majority of well-known celebrities/politicians and presence of teenage activist Greta Thunberg, who has the necessary autonomy and credibility to speak on behalf of the youth about climate issues. We claim that the YCM is a new global phenomenon which calls many ethical questions concerning climate change risk awareness (Beck 1992). Therefore, actionable climate literacy of the youth triggered the world wide “rebellion”. Having said that, we try to answer the question of what can be learned from the YCM. In order to do that we analyze its characteristics, for instance: a) embarking from the sharp division for Global North and the Global South in thinking about the contemporary power relations and planning of the future; b) the emergence of the youth as a new category politically active and organized on a global scale, c) questioning by the actionable climate literacy, the existing global order and balance of powers. As for the latter, we believe that it is worth considering the YCM as potentially anti-systemic force which questions the logic, direction and rules of the very neoliberal globalization. To sum up, we try to answer the question of, in what sense, if at all, the participants of the YCM may be considered as responsible global citizens who would be a good indicator of the New Globalization itself.