On March 20, during one of the first digital strikes to take over the web since the start of this pandemic, youth from Uganda to the UK shared messages addressing the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change secretariat, which coordinates the international climate talks for the Paris Agreement. They demanded a ban on fossil fuel corporations funding or attending climate negotiations and shared stories on social media of how the climate crisis is already directly impacting their lives using the hashtag #PollutersOut. And they coordinated a storm of tweets to highlight the way fossil fuel companies have got their fingers entrenched in international climate negotiations.

Young activists took part in the digital Polluters Out strike by posting their messages to the UNFCCC on Twitter and Instagram. Photo: courtesy of Polluters Out.
Young leaders see the urgency of their work now more than ever. “We do not just want to be a movement who strikes and then goes home,” Ayisha says. “We came at this with a strategic end goal.”
Their goal is directly connected to the disappointment Ayisha and other young activists felt during last year’s international talks on the Paris Agreement in Madrid – known as COP25 – where world leaders come before the United Nations to discuss their countries’ individual commitments to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. For many of those who had been striking throughout the year, coming face to face for the first time with the politics of climate negotiations was dismaying. Spain’s biggest polluter sponsored the event, fossil fuel executives were leading discussion panels, and by the end of the conference, international leaders made very little progress on the fine details of the Paris Agreement. On top of that, young activists who were invited to the conference said that instead of being given the opportunity to voice their demands to world leaders, they were offered tutorials on how to build a movement.
Photo: courtesy of Polluters Out.
The way many youth climate leaders see it, the lack of immediate action will continue as long as fossil fuel giants are able to financially support these international governmental meetings, the politicians that take part, and other powerful institutions in society, such as banks and universities.
“The UN Climate Summit was, quite bluntly speaking, humiliating to the youth,” says Ayisha. “Although, on paper, the policies that these accords or proposals are trying to get world leaders to enact are wonderful, there is a lot of money being funneled in by the fossil fuel industry.”
Photo: courtesy of Polluters Out.