Participation: Research with Young Climate Activists

The Youth Climate Justice (YCJ) project, funded by the European Research Council, involves an interdisciplinary, global team undertaking transnational research on child and youth climate action inside and outside legal systems.  

Across the five years of the project, case studies will be conducted across the world using interviews, surveys and workshops with children and youth to gather their views on human rights and child/youth climate action. In our in-person and online workshops we use art-based methodologies (e.g., photovoice, drawing) to research with young participants. Workshops are being conducted in Nepal, Canada, South Africa, Ireland, Argentina and with the project's Young Advisory Team. 

Nepal Fieldwork

Between November 2024 and April 2025, the Youth Climate Justice project carried out its first case study in Nepal, led by Postdoctoral Researcher Dr. Nabin Maharjan in collaboration with community-based partner Jyapu Samaj-Yala. Artistic workshops were held with 34 Indigenous children and young people from Patan, Kathmandu. Themes of climate change, children’s rights, and youth leadership were explored through artwork. Activities included visits to local heritage sites such as the Bagmati riverside (UN Park), where participants reflected on environmental challenges, and creative sessions in the 2,000-year-old Yumpi Monastery, where children expressed their perspectives through art and photography. 

The work concluded with a public art exhibition on 5 April 2025 at the Patan Museum Gallery (a UNESCO World Heritage Site). The exhibition was inaugurated by the Minister of Forests and Environment, Mr. Ain Bahadur Shahi, and attended by local leaders including Hon. Prem Bahadur Maharjan (MP) and Mayor Chiri Babu Maharjan, alongside an audience of nearly 300 community members. The exhibition powerfully showcased youth creativity, climate storytelling, and indigenous perspectives, while creating new spaces for intergenerational dialogue on the climate crisis. 

This case study contributed vital insights into how Indigenous youth in Nepal perceive and experience climate justice, and how their voices can reshape understandings of children’s rights in the climate crisis. Check out our blogposts here and here to learn more about the Nepal fieldwork journey. 

YAT Fieldwork

In 2025, the Youth Climate Justice project’s Young Advisory Team (YAT) partook in a series of research workshops where they discussed themes such as the implications of children as leaders, the impact of climate crisis on children’s rights, the importance of nature, and the need for more spaces for intergenerational dialogue and meaningful child/youth participation. Artwork, some of which can be viewed here, was created through various media (e.g., collage, photography, drawings) by the young advisors to demonstrate the type of leadership and climate action they take part in. The last session involved a virtual art exhibition and intergenerational dialogue. The YAT were joined by adult leaders from the children’s rights community (including a member of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child). 

This research feeds into the wider participation work package to better understand the views and experiences of children and youth who partake in climate action themselves. In comparison with the other participation research workshops happening in Nepal and Canada, for example, is the diversity across the research participants. The Young Advisors come from 11 different countries across 5 continents and have participated in everything from lawsuits to local climate initiatives like beach and park cleanups.  

Check out this blogpost to read more about the online fieldwork with the YCJ Young Advisory Team.  

COP Research 

As part of the youth climate justice movement, there have been an increasing number of children and youth attending COP (Conference of the Parties), the global United Nations negotiations on climate progress and policy. Traditionally, these are very adult-led spaces where children and youth have been excluded. During 2024, the YCJ team decided to further investigate this to better understand the experience of children and young adults who attend COP—both the positive experiences and challenges they faced.  

The research involved 20 online interviews with children and youth across Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America. The interview participants had attended COP (or attempted to) between the ages of 11 and 29. Overall, the research aimed to answer how age and other identities affect participation at COP; how children/youth are supported to participate; if children’s rights are used in COP advocacy; and how/if children/youth see themselves as leaders in climate and children's rights.  

In the end, the findings demonstrated that there are many barriers and facilitators for children and youth attending COP. Some barriers include financial/logistical constraints and tokenistic practices, for example, one participant said “I was given a ticket and a place to stay, but no one really prepared me for the labyrinth of negotiations and bureaucratic hurdles inside COP” (Female, Europe, aged 23 at first COP). Other themes also arose, like the emotional toll that COP takes and the lack of focus on children’s rights. On the other hand, some young attendees enjoy mentorship from older youth and adults; and being supported by an organisation. They also outline they ways in which they felt their presence at COP made a difference. 

Paz Landeira, F.; O’Sullivan, A.; Daly, A.; Reid, K. COP and the Experiences of Children and Youth: Considering the Rights of Children and Youth in Global Climate Governance. International Journal of Children’s Rights 2025.  

Judgments: Child/Youth Climate Case Law Database

This work package looks at cases that children and young people have brought to courts about the climate crisis to hold governments and businesses accountable for their lack of mitigation and adaptation efforts. Through the lens of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), our team has applied a child rights-based analysis to eighty (80) child and youth-involved cases worldwide. The term ‘youth’ includes children and young people up to the age of 25. ‘Youth-involved’ means the case is either brought by, or in the name of, individual youth, or organisations that represent youth, or they have significantly involved youth in the case. We also include cases that cite children’s rights/interests. 

Each summary provides a breakdown according to which CRC rights were cited directly, and where CRC rights are not directly cited, according to the CRC right which is related to the arguments in the case. The breakdown summaries also provide information regarding the applicants and the NGOs and lawyers who supported them. These breakdowns are publicly available on the Youth Climate Justice Case Law Database, which is a tool that academics, lawyers and children can use to support their work. One can filter for age ranges, keywords, outcome of case, etc. The database also contains links to our child-friendly summaries of some of the cases.  

The project will also use the data gathered from this process to publish research analysing the effect of children’s litigation on international law, and their transition from recipients of protection to co-creators of law. 

Litigation: Global Study on Child/Youth-Involved Climate Litigation

Climate cases are being taken all over the world to try to force governments and others to better combat the climate crisis. Children and youth are at the heart of many of these cases, as we present in our Youth Climate Justice Case Law Database. This exciting trend is part of a picture of children and youth taking the lead on climate justice efforts all around the world. But what is this experience like for children and youth involved? And how is the involvement of children and youth in climate cases changing laws, and how legal spaces work? And what does children's involvement mean for children's rights?

As part of this work package, the Youth Climate Justice Team is interviewing children/youth (age 8-28) with experience of climate cases to find out their experiences as young litigants. We are all also interviewing lawyers and those in nongovernmental organisations who have been working with children and youth on climate cases. We are currently interviewing participants and will continue until May 2026—please spread the word if you or anyone you know has been involved in a child/youth-involved climate case (join-up information here). 

The Global Study on child/youth climate litigation aims to examine (1) children/youth as environmental rights leaders in the climate crisis and (2) how children/youth think that climate justice could be made more child-friendly. Thus far, we have spoken to litigants and lawyers from Latin America, Asia, Africa, North America, Europe, and other regions. We aim to include as many children/youth as possible to ensure that the answers to the research questions are highly child/youth informed. 

We are also constructing with children/youth and their lawyers a framework to guide work in this area- a child-friendly climate justice framework. In this way we hope that children and youth can have as good an experience as possible when they engage in climate cases, and that lawyers and others have a detailed framework that they can follow which is grounded in children's rights and children’s views.