To politicize intergenerational justice, youth activists have adopted the more radical terms (and associated terminology) of “environmental justice” and “climate justice” and translated them into a new version of intergenerational justice. Translation can be understood to be an open processes of reinterpretation and appropriation: “… norms diffuse precisely because—rather than despite the fact that—they may encompass different meanings, fit in with a variety of contexts, and be subject to framing by diverse actors” ([23]: 105). The assumption that norms are flexible and contestable leads to a growing emphasis being placed on actors (those who translate) and their agency [46]. The underlying hypothesis here is that the increased agency of marginalized groups (here young people) will have effects on mainstream norms and discourses. As Holzscheiter [14] has shown in her study of children’s agency in international politics dealing with child labor, we can observe that policies and discourse change dramatically when affected persons, i.e., children and youth, are recognized in the discourse as valid political agents. It changes not only discourses, as Holzscheiter argues, but also procedural norms. Children and young people experience more opportunities to participate in political negotiations and decision-making, such as in the Security Council of the UN as a result of being included in the discourse ([14], p. 656). Similarly, we observe that notions of sustainable futures are neither static nor immutable but can be challenged and reinterpreted by different actors [11, 18].
Youth actors have gained more agency in recent years and also accumulated more power to translate existing norms into new contexts (see [3]). They do so by making intergenerational justice a norm that directly and concretely affects them more so than it does some abstract unborn future generations. Moreover, the claim to be able to represent future generations goes hand in hand with being directly and concretely impacted by climate change in the future [19]. Whereas the principles of sustainability have been based heretofore on notions of long-term, more distant futures and abstract future generations, these futures have now been reinterpreted or reconstructed to be closer, concrete, and directly linked to the present generation of young people. This new framing has been underlined and reinforced by the already visible impacts of global climate change, such as the more frequent occurrence of extreme weather events in recent years, like the summer droughts in Germany in 2018 and 2019 and the disastrous floods in the summer of 2021.
As Holfelder et al. [13] point out, Fridays for Future has made generational relations between younger people and adults a political topic. FFF has criticized the older generation for ineffective climate politics and demanded alternative options for action, namely, those that have promised global environmental justice as well as adequate protection against climate change impacts ([13]: 130–131). By grounding their explicit demands on a new vision of just futures combined with a reference to evidence-based research, FFF has effectively mobilized young people for climate and sustainability goals to a degree that has never been witnessed before in the entire climate debate. This reframing of the issue therefore has motivated masses of young people to take action, increased public attention and sensitivity, and raised the overall visibility of climate change impacts [45].
The mobilizing power of Fridays for Future is based on “a deep sense of injustice” [7]. Their anger about injustices in the face of the climate crisis has motivated many FFF activists to build a bridge between intergenerational and climate justice. They express their anger over the injustice of being disproportionately negatively impacted by the climate crisis as young people whose futures stretch over many decades to come [17]; but, at the same time, they do not feel responsible for the vast amounts of CO2 that have been emitted in the past up to the present. In parallel, the global environmental movement frames climate injustices by referring to injustices between the Global North and the Global South, where the line is drawn between those countries and regions that are responsible for most of the world’s emissions and those countries or regions whose populations have suffered the most from the environmental degradation and pollution caused by the former. What the FFF has done is to link the issue of intergenerational justice to the concept of climate justice, the language of which “is increasingly omnipresent in the discourse of academia, civil society, social movements, some governments, cities and even some businesses.” [26].
Two illustrations of the translation process by youth groups: methodological approach
To further explore this process empirically, of norm translation towards justice, initiated by youth activists, we examine formal statements from each of two youth groups: first, the UN Major Group for Children and Youth, an institutionally established group, and second, Fridays for Future, a global social movement coalition outside of the international institutional framework. We have chosen a mix of quantitative and qualitative content analysis methods to examine statements that were published online by both groups. For our samples, we selected all of the MGCY statements issued in multiple UN forums and published on the UN website from 2012 to 2017,Footnote 4 and retrieved as many FFF statements as we could, published from various FFF groups around the globe on their websites from 2019 to 2021. We then coded the documents for words that are narrowly related to justice (e.g., justice, just, justness, fair, fairness, righteous, equity) with MaxQDA. Based on this data, we conducted a qualitative analysis of the segments, whereby we investigated the contexts associated with each justice claim. We first coded the different segments according to the specific type of justice to which they refer. The categories were developed inductively. When justice was mentioned in a segment, for example, as intergenerational justice or with reference to human rights, we created the categories accordingly. Segments were frequently coded with multiple categories because the statements contained references to different kinds of justice. Here we asked, what kinds of justice are mentioned and how are just futures articulated and envisioned in the segments? We focused on the immediate versus distant images of future impacts, the connection between intra- and intergenerational justice, and the link between transformations towards sustainability and its impacts on social justice. Our samples consisted of 34 UN MGCY documents and 33 FFF documents. Out of those documents, 28 segments were coded in 18 of them from the UN MGCY, and 38 segments were coded in 23 of them from the FFF (Table 1).
The UN Major Group for Children and Youth is part of a United Nations representational system created in 1992 in accordance with its Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), during which national governments formally recognized the role of civil society participation at UN level. The MGCY sees its role in acting “as a bridge between children and youth and the UN system in order to ensure that their right for meaningful participation is realized” ([38], 10). In keeping with its mandate, the group engages in various thematic areas across a wide range of sustainable development goal-related processes and policy avenues including intergovernmental activities, policymaking, coordination, and partnerships (ibid.).
Fridays for Future started in 2018, initiated by Greta Thunberg’s school strikes. As more and more children and young people began to strike on Fridays by skipping school classes to demonstrate for action on climate change to be taken, the movement grew into a worldwide protest with mass demonstrations held around the globe, for example in March 2019. Fridays for Future describe themselves as “a youth-led and -organised movement.”Footnote 5 The FFF has a more informal structure than the MGCY and is not officially part of any recognized and established political institution. The main aim of the FFF is to ensure compliance with the 1.5 °C global warming target that was established in the Paris Agreement. Fridays for Future is a very young movement—14- to 19-year olds make up the largest contingent among protesters, and the movement is “strongly dominated by women” ([42]: 9). FFF protesters are generally well-educated; many of them are nevertheless first-time demonstrators (ibid.).
UN Major Group Children and Youth
An initial and quite interesting finding is that the vast majority of statements by the MGCY about justice occurred during the early years of their activities from 2012 up to 2015 (25 out of 28 segments). Only two such justice-related statements were made subsequently in 2015 and only one in 2017. As shown in Fig. 1, intergenerational justice is the reference that is made most often. Climate justice and environmental justice are mentioned equally often but slightly less than intergenerational justice. Interestingly, procedural justice, for instance, referring to fairer procedures and more equitable participation in decision making, is nearer to the top of the list.
We begin by focusing more closely on the statements about intergenerational justice. These reveal more insights on how those terms are used in context. In six of the statements, intergenerational justice is linked directly to procedural justice. When the Major Group Children and Youth delivered a statement at the twentieth session of the Commission on Sustainable Development in 2013, they demanded inclusion of civil society through organizations like their own group, with reference to intergenerational justice. This could be interpreted to mean that they put themselves in the position of future generations:
To truly defend our futures, your legacy needs to include institutional mechanisms that ensure intergenerational justice. We must not only recognize that sustainability is important, but we must create spaces for civil society voices to become an integral part of the process. (MGCY, 20/09/2013)
The demand for an institutional solution to ensure intergenerational justice and, along with this, the inscription of a long-term future perspective are both further expanded in a subsequent statement one year later during the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) in 2014:
The long term is such an important issue that we believe it requires a dedicated body to give it the visibility it deserves, in order to orchestrate responsibility towards future generations. It would advocate for intergenerational equity in UN activities concerning sustainable development and encourage responsibility towards future generations, in order to safeguard their interests from present threats. It would be the long-term voice at the table, when everyone else is preoccupied with immediate targets and achievements. (MGCY, 01/07/2014)
In addition to the institutionalization of intergenerational justice, the empowerment of young people is linked to it as well. Underlying the whole idea of intergenerational justice is the perception of young people as the target group—that is, those who will be concretely and disproportionately negatively affected by longer term climate change impacts and by their not having a say in present policy design and decisions that determine their future:
Recognizing intergenerational equity as a priority is in that manner an undisputed fundamental principle to increase the empowerment of young people all over the world. (MGCY, 03/07/2014)
This concrete future perspective is aligned with the existential nature of human rights. It is further complemented by an intersectional perspective, hinting at other dimensions of justice like social justice and gender justice:
We are still struggling for the realization of our basic human rights. May we not forget, that when we talk about sustainable development, we are talking about something bigger than a development paradigm, it is a way of life, it is a way of ensuring that future will be prosperous and the world will be just and sustainable for all, for women and men, girls and boys regardless of their status and personal characteristics. (MGCY, 20/09/2013)
At the thirteenth session of the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals on July 15, 2014, this link to human rights is further expanded upon by reference to the dangerous exceeding of planetary boundaries. Securing a “safe world for future generations” is contrasted with the risks and dangers of shortsighted political decision-making:
We witnessed when the means to implement this agenda were weakened to serve the hands of powerful business. And we witnessed when the definitions of peace, justice, human rights and social security became controversial. We understand and recognize that these are complex issues, burdened with red lines and instructions from capital. But we need to do better, much better, in order to deliver on the greatest challenges of our time and to secure a safe world for future generations. In today’s world, we are crossing planetary boundaries, something this room does not acknowledge; we are compromising needs of future generations due to shortsighted decision-making; and we are risking dangerous climate change, already witnessing the first victims. If we don’t take the appropriate action here, in these comfortable seats, the fight for achieving a sustainable world is useless. (MGCY, 15/07/2014)
At the UN Ocean Conference in June 2017, MGCY claimed the legitimacy of personating the future by stating that young people are “100%” of it. This indicates clearly that the present generation of young people asserts the right to directly represent future generations:
Our blue world must at all costs be based on the collective principles of solidarity, justice, equity, inclusion, human rights and the integrity of the planet. Because even though young people might only constitute 50 % of the population, we are 100% of the future. (MGCY, 19/06/2017)
MGCY statements frame intergenerational justice first as a matter that requires institutional response. Their demand—although the proposal was unsuccessful—to install a UN commission(er) for future generations is just one example. But beyond concrete political demands, the translation of intergenerational justice as an “undisputed fundamental principle” (MGCY, 03/07/2014) signifies that it is not only at the heart of sustainability politics, but that it should be prioritized.
Fridays for Future
When we looked at the statements by FFF (cf. Fig. 2), we were struck with how they referred to justice so much more frequently than did MGCY. Climate justice is the most prominent reference, occurring in almost all of FFF’s statements. References to climate justice references are also often coupled with demands for social justice. However, a big difference to the MGCY statements is that FFF statements did not contain many explicit references to intergenerational justice, but rather indirectly refer to intergenerational justice within the frameworks of climate and social justice.
In statements by FFF, we also observed that this group was significantly more pessimistic in tone, focusing more on preparation for crisis-like situations than on drafting future solutions or referring to long-term futures and future generations. FFF South Africa criticizes the fact that children are not prepared in school for “the reality of societal collapse, or ecosystem death”:
… Our school system is not preparing children for the reality of societal collapse, or ecosystem death etc. The children are being taught to go and work in the corporate sector and go compete for limited jobs, whilst their actual reality of having to survive on planet earth in the future is not being taught to them …. (FFF South Africa, 15/03/2019)
This anticipation of catastrophic events as part of an educational program for children and youth was also echoed by MGCY, but MGCY, unlike FFF, consider the possibility of averting catastrophic futures. The above FFF statement indicates that the group sees less hope of avoiding disastrous futures and therefore a greater need for coping measures to address an inevitably difficult, impending future. In another statement made in the early days of FFF, in 2019, FFF UK articulates what “future generations” mean concretely, whereby the abstract notion has shifted to become a tangible manifestation of real people:
We’re your neighbours, your classmates, the kids … at the back of the bus and the university students in the flat next door. We’re calling for our future to be protected, and for those in positions of power to take the immediate and radical actions needed to address the climate crisis, not just for us, but for those around the world already losing their lives because of the devastating effects of climate breakdown. We’ve emerged as one of the most exciting and dynamic movements calling for climate justice in the UK. We have all witnessed the unprecedented numbers of young people being empowered to hold those in positions of leadership to account on their dismal climate records, lack of positive action, and abject failure to protect people and planet and allow them to flourish. Not only have we found our collective voice, but we’re using it to shout at the top of our lungs. (FFF UK, 27/03/2019)
The politicizing moment of this statement is not only the reframing of future generations to include the young people of the present but also the political empowerment of young people considered as the potential victims of climate change who have the right, if not the duty, to demand accountability from political decision-makers. These claims are legitimated by the fact that young people feel directly affected by consequences of the climate crisis. Although this argument was raised in earlier studies associated with sustainability sciences and politics, the issue has taken on a greater sense of urgency with the personification of future generations by the FFF and with the proliferation of worldwide of extreme weather events and natural disasters associated with climate change:
Climate Justice means international and intergenerational solidarity. As we move into what is undoubtedly a new epoch for our society, we must be very conscious of the impact of our actions on future generations and other countries. Younger generations will be hit harder than anyone and will have to live with the consequences of what we decide to do in this moment of crisis. (FFF Luxemburg, 24/04/2020)
Both groups, the MGCY and FFF, refer frequently to human rights. This trend is particularly noticeable in the FFF statements. Because members of FFF Philippines must also struggle with the political persecution of environmental activists, their demands link climate justice with human rights claims:
All over the Philippines we have seen how environmental defenders have been intimidated, harassed, and attacked. In order to have a society where climate justice is the new normal, we must call for justice for all environmental defenders who have always been at frontline of the struggle. We challenge the Philippine government to listen to and protect our environmental defenders because they are essential to our society’s development. (FFF Philippines, 21/06/2020)
In many FFF statements, social justice was often interlinked with climate justice. Social justice is not just mentioned in the abstract; instead, concrete demands are made, such as the inclusion of workers in the decision-making in the context of energy transition. Groups in the Global South as well as those in the Global North articulate such demands:
Our gradual shift to renewable energy should also keep in mind the workers who will be affected; a roadmap born out of consultations with and active participation of our workers and other key marginalized sectors to ensure a just transition would also be required as we press forward to the new normal. (FFF Philippines, 02/08/2020)
Unlike MGCY statements, those of the FFF do not refer to long-term politics as a solution for intergenerational justice. Rather, the demand is for the politics to be “faster and fairer”:
We are entering the final decade in which concrete climate action is possible. We are rapidly running out of time. This Bill must commit to binding concrete action that is faster and fairer than the 2050 target. In the coming days, an amended Bill which delivers climate justice, necessary change and above all a sustainable and just society must be delivered (FFF Ireland, 2020)
The existential aspect to just futures for younger generations, which typically characterizes earlier MGCY statements, is also emphasized in FFF statements:
Fighting for climate justice for your city is not a passion or a hobby; it is a necessity to keep our chances for a better future; keep calling out those in charge who don’t lobby for the change we need to keep ourselves and our city safe. (FFF Pakistan, 30/08/2020)
As mentioned before, FFF statements rarely refer to intergenerational justice. However, the notion of young peoples’ future being endangered by current politics is prevalent in FFF statements similar to the frequency of intergenerational justice in MGCY statements. Future generations become personated by young activists, and their concerns have become even more of a political issue with the introduction of climate justice as a dominant normative point of reference.