Dissent, Disruption, and Youth Climate Activism at COP28

As a climate activist and anthropologist from the United States, I joined the board of Ungir Umhverfissinnar (UU, The Icelandic Youth Environmentalist Association) one year after moving to Iceland to do research for my master’s thesis in anthropology at the University of Iceland. Protest culture in Iceland is much more timid than the acts of civil disobedience organized by international groups like Extinction Rebellion, Just Stop Oil, or even Fridays for the Future. The protests I helped organize never went further than slogan shouting, singing, and sign holding which attracted less than a few dozen people.

As the climate representative of UU, I attended COP28 (the United Nations annual Conference of the Parties) in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) along with the president of UU. The conference was hosted in a swanky conference center built by oil money in the middle of the desert.

Here, we witnessed protests on a scale beyond anything I had been a part of in Iceland. As the biggest annual conference on environmentalism in the world, COPs is a gathering of global politicians, scientists, and others coming together to negotiate each country’s contributions to tackling the climate crisis.

COPs are also great places for activists to have their voices heard by those at the very top. However, during COP28, a series of events between the heads of delegation and youth activists revealed to me—a first time COPs attendee—the bittersweet reality of these momentous gatherings. 

Past and Present Youth Climate Activism at COPs

Even more experienced COPs attendees than I never expected the first draft of the Global Stock Take (GST) to include a full “fossil fuel phase out”: a commitment from most of the world’s countries to fully stop using fossil fuels. The mandate of the text was to evaluate how countries were performing in relation to the landmark Paris Agreement, the international treaty on climate change signed at COP21 in 2016—from which Donald Trump infamously withdrew the United States, only for Joe Biden to re-enter years later.

Unfortunately, the first draft of the GST text failed to fulfill that basic goal, actually undercutting the original objectives of the Paris Agreement. So, when I heard news about a hastily arranged demonstration by YOUNGO (the official body meant to represent youth NGOs at UN events), I immediately agreed to join. 

In a last-ditch effort to make an impact at COP28, over one hundred youth lined up in two rows directly in front of the meeting room’s doors, like spectators attending a despondent parade. Negotiators and dignitaries attending the final Heads of Delegation meeting to discuss the GST were forced to walk between us. We aimed a mood of quiet disapproval and encouragement to do better.

Under the gaze of youth from all over the world, many Heads of Delegation from wealthy, Western nations avoided our gazes the best they could. They either sprinted through our lines as fast as their dignity would let them or attempted to find an alternate route into the room. In contrast, the Heads of Delegation from countries already being pummeled by climate change gained strength from our presence. They took their time to thank us for being there, and promised to fight for a better GST text. It was a fitting ending to what had been a deeply contradictory experience, where my emotions constantly vacillated between optimism and despair, ultimately resting in profound exhaustion. 

But while linking hands with fellow youth activists, I was also filled with a sense of wonder at what the protest represented: the culmination of a decades-long youth campaign to be taken seriously. The protest was a quiet reminder to the Heads of Delegation from countries accustomed to completely ignoring their youth. We were watching, and we could not be dismissed off or treated as “pesky outsiders who did not understand the dynamics of multilateral diplomacy.”

Although most of the young people I encountered at COP28 were clearly acquainted with navigating the dynamics of COPs and using their status as youth to their advantage, this did not mean the “currency of youth” was valid for everyone. According to anthropologist Naveeda Khan, youth have primarily demonstrated their expertise and indispensability at COPs through collaboration with states from the Global South, who have often been stauncher allies for youth than states in the Global North. For example, Fridays For the Future (FFF)—the climate movement launched by Greta Thunberg along with other youth environmentalists—has increasingly sought to use the platform to foreground the struggle of Indigenous peoples. 

This alliance is built on justice, achieved through mutual recognition of the hard-fought progress these overlapping groups have made at every COPs where both have been historically excluded by the concentration of wealth, social capital, and cultural capital in the hands of older, white men from Global North countries.

Strategies Employed by Youth Climate Activists

The approach adopted by groups like FFF is important since the ability or willingness of youth to advocate on behalf of other vulnerable groups declines as individuals’ proximity to the halls of power increases. In contrast to members of groups like FFF, who are identified as “disruptive dissenters” because of their radical views and embrace of civil disobedience strategies, Laura Bullon-Cassis has described members of YOUNGO, Youth Delegates (youth chosen to negotiate on behalf of their countries), and the UN Major Group for Children and Youth as “dutiful dissenters.” 

Some members of these latter groups have been attending UN conferences for years—volunteering their time to make progress on environmental matters in the hopes of an eventual position in the UN. These are the youth most often celebrated by their own governments because of moderate views and “liberal” or “professional” engagement methods. Although unintentional on the part of the youth themselves, excessive attention on them have “overshadowed other temporal and conceptual understandings of the climate crisis, such as those experienced by Indigenous peoples.”

These youth probably intend to use their position of privilege and power to amplify the voices of those who enjoy less power. But a conflict emerges when they start to identify more with their powerful colleagues—older bureaucrats, politicians, and policymakers—which minimizes their commitment to and identification with Indigenous peoples, people from the Global South, and other vulnerable groups committed to environmental justice.

After attending a few side events extolling the merits of the Climate Youth Negotiators training program and then witnessing the silence of those negotiators during official proceedings, I am unconvinced that negotiations at such global events are the best way for youth to achieve their goals.

Suppression of “Disruptive Dissenters”

My concern over the right to protest on environmental matters has only increased over the past year amidst the ongoing global crackdown on peaceful environmental protests across the world. This parallels my experience at the COP28 YOUNGO protest where as soon as we decided to step outside our role as “dutiful dissenters,” the UN police and most delegates from the Global North treated us as if we were misbehaving children or hooligans rather than a collective who has shown up year after year to have our voices heard, and to fight for the right to influence our own future.

The choice to hold the conference in UAE, where the right to protest is not protected by law, was a source of concern in the lead up to the conference—even if events like COPs are under the jurisdiction of the UN. I did not witness anyone being arrested, and the media was allowed to document our action from a distance, but the police’s frantic actions and radio communications, arbitrary enforcement of boundaries, and overall disposition made it clear that we were perceived not as youth making our case through peaceful means, but as disruptive dissenters threatening the multilateral, consensus building process of COPs.

A 12-year-old girl was escorted out and de-badged for rushing the stage during a large plenary event and holding a sign calling for the end of fossil fuels. Being de-badged—having your permission to participate in the conference revoked—is a constant threat at the COPs for activists who fail to follow the rules for even a minute and is used as a practice to discipline protestors.

The other protests I attended during COP28—which, in addition to the usual environmental issues, also focused on the war in Gaza—were allowed to proceed with minimal interference. However, I was told repeatedly that the protests were much smaller in scale than at previous COPs, and other attendees have said that arranging protests “in [COP28], in this Blue Zone, has been way more difficult and restrictive than any other time.”

The lack of protests outside of the UN safe zone was also extremely telling. It is a COPs “tradition” for the public and visitors to hold a large protest in the middle of the conference city. Media coverage of the city protest distorted its scale, and our YOUNGO protest evidently did not merit any mainstream media coverage. The rumors of crackdown against anybody perceived as “disruptive” were pervasive—intimidating activists and potential protesters and further deepening an atmosphere of frustration, distrust, and exhaustion that has become an intrinsic part of COPs, including COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Looking Ahead

I was not able to attend COP29 this year but followed closely from the sidelines. Confirming the concerns of activists and NGOs regarding crackdown on protests, outlets have reported that “due to restrictions on protest, members of climate justice and civil society groups were not allowed to march in the venue or chant in corridors, so they held a silent protest instead.”

At the time of writing, there is little indication that the outcomes of COP29 will be much different than COP28. Leaked documents show that the UAE planned to use COP28 to promote oil deals. The head of COP29, who is also the Deputy Minister of Energy of the Republic of Azerbaijan, has been “filmed agreeing to facilitate fossil fuel deals at climate summit.” Saudi Arabia has specifically stated that “the Arab group will not accept any text that targets any specific sectors, including fossil fuels.” China and Bolivia have expressed similar sentiments. Clearly, the curtailment of rights to protest and express discontent has emboldened countries to subvert the aims of COPs.

COP30 will be held in Belem, Brazil—a country with an environmentally checkered past because of its competing desires to protect the Amazon rainforest and to develop the country’s economy through environmentally damaging means. The current Lula presidency in Brazil, unlike the erstwhile Bolsonaro presidency, shows encouraging signs of allowing dissent as evidenced from protests against the G20 summit proceedings this year.

Regardless, COP30 is another momentous meeting during which developed countries have the opportunity “to reflect on their strateg[ies] to adapt to climate change, and to be at the forefront of ambitious implementation.” Although unlikely, it remains to be seen whether developed countries will live up to this ambitious mandate. Compared to the previous three COPs held in Egypt, UAE, and Azerbaijan, there is hope that any activists will be able to express their discontent and disappointment.

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Featured Image: Fridays for Future climate protest in Heidelberg. Photo by Stephan Sprinz, 2023.

Cody Skahan is a PhD student in Anthropology at the University of Oxford and graduate of the MA program in Anthropology at the University of Iceland as a Leifur Eriksson Fellow. His work focuses on conflicting and interrelated sociotechnical imaginaries among youth environmentalists and others in the Arctic. Cody co-hosts a social theory and anthropology podcast called Un/livable Cultures. Website. Contact.