Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

The increasing concern among young people about the climate crisis has led to greater action and demands for policy change. One of these ways is through dialogue with policymakers, which aims to get the youth’s input on policy. According to the literature, climate-related youth dialogues have not achieved this goal as youth have been unable to participate meaningfully. Two of the most critical barriers to meaningful participation are a lack of trust and power imbalances. Because of this, two frameworks centering trust (Trinity of Voice) and power (Powercube) were used to analyse the experiences of six young dialogue participants. The findings suggest that there are numerous shortcomings in youth dialogues, which continue to prevent meaningful participation. To build trust and address power, dialogue processes must provide youth with adequate resources to participate, foster a collaborative atmosphere, clearly specify dialogue goals, and increase transparency regarding the use of the youth’s input. This could increase meaningful participation of youth in dialogues and thus improve the ability for youth’s input to be applied to policy. In the process of growing youth influence, the broader democratic implications of including youth more than other societal groups need to be considered to ensure just and democratic decision-making processes for everyone. For youth to influence policy, other methods than dialogues may be required, as there is a risk that the status quo cannot be effectively questioned through dialogue. Further research is necessary to produce more generalizable results and strategies that can aid in implementing actionable steps to address these shortcomings.