Later, this in turn developed into the regular presence of International Youth Delegations. But this dates back even further to 1999 when at COP 5 in Bonn, a parallel Children and Youth Forum on the Environment was organised.

Young activists even had their own dedicated climate conference – the COY conference of youth – which took place alongside the main UN conference. In 2015 the climate conference in Paris, COP21 was a unique moment for youth groups on the international climate scene and they influenced the outcome of the talks. Her passionate calls for action in filled rooms at international political summits and forums have been watched worldwide. Greta Thunberg became one of the world’s most recognisable faces after starting a one-person strike in her home city of Stockholm and spearheaded a global movement – “Fridays for Future” – made up of millions of youth climate strikers. Over the last few years, the rise of youth groups campaigning on climate issues has been unprecendented. The dire situation and the progressive political vacuum fed into the fast and successful emergence of the Sunrise movement and its radical Green New Deal program. The stakes were then high – a raging and worsening climate crisis, a growing socio-economic and racial divide, together with a national public health crisis. After Donald Trump became President in January 2017, hopes for positive progress on the climate agenda shifted largely to grassroots groups, municipalities and a range of activist groups representing a range of interests including: feminist, LGBTQ+ rights, climate, economic and racial justice. The new popularity of the term Green New Deal can be credited to this group of young climate activists known as the Sunrise Movement. But where did they come from, and how did they achieve this rapid transformation of the climate policy agenda? The Sunrise Movement’s tireless work is now bearing fruit in climate action the US administration.

In the darkness of recent years that saw the shadow of inadequate climate action stretch across the world’s biggest economy, one group in particular kept a light shining in the US. If so it could be because they failed to notice the effect of the work of an extraordinary, new youth movement. The enthusiastic and prominent position given to climate policy by the new United States (US) President, Joe Biden, might have surprised some.