In a recent Ted Talk, Neeshad Shafi (2022), the co-founder and executive director of the Arab Youth Climate Movement Qatar, describes the lack of representation of youth from the MENA region in the global climate politics conversation. Shafi (2022) highlights how local and global media reports ignore activists from the region even as they lionize activists from the Global North. In preliminary research conversations with activists and movement leaders in MENA countries, virtually all have mentioned themes consistent with Shafi’s account and have indicated a need for greater scholarly research which amplifies the unique perspectives and work of climate activists in the region. Locally grounded and regionally networked youth climate movements in the MENA region have existed in a formal capacity since at least 2015 with the emergence of the Arab Youth Climate Movement Qatar. Yet, early conversations surrounding this type of regional movement, interviews indicate, began to emerge in earnest around the COP 18 negotiations held in Doha in 2012, suggesting linkages between international governance events and local movement organizing in the region. The youth climate movement landscape in the MENA region is important to understand, in particular given that both COP 27 and COP 28 are scheduled in MENA countries. Despite approximately a decade of organizing, these movements have received a fraction of the attention global north originating movements like Fridays for Future have attained, speaking to the uneven geographies of media attention to climate activism.

This research draws on interviews with MENA youth activists and movement leaders to be conducted in the lead-up to and at COP 27 in November, event ethnography, and participant observation at COP 27 focused on the formal and informal routes of influence of MENA youth in the space of the UNFCCC. Through interviews and ethnographic fieldwork, this article will: 1.) characterize the contextual challenges which intersect with climate impacts in the region by centering youth voices; 2.) describe how youth climate activists and movements from the region engage within spaces of global climate policymaking and what limitations exist; and 3.) broaden the scholarly and public discussion of youth climate activism by shifting the emphasis to youth perspectives from a most impacted region.

References: 

Shafi, N. (2022, February 7). Climate Action: Time for Arab Youth to Lead (Ted Talk). [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDs0m7dVrmA