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What happens when we trust youth to lead climate action?

These five stories hold the answer

By United Nations Development Programme

November 18^th, 2025

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The world is heating. Inequalities are deepening. And yet, across continents, young people are stepping into the cracks of broken systems and reimagining what’s possible.

While the world works to respond to the climate crisis, youth from around the world are showing what happens when youth are not just invited to the table but trusted to lead.

This article introduces five of these young leaders: Sundus from Pakistan, Elvis from Liberia, Luís from Bolivia, Pablo from Colombia, Specioza from Uganda. All of them, with support of Youth4Climate, are building new systems of food, energy, mobility and education, from the ground up.

Their projects are different, but their experiences and drive are shared. And while their stories are powerful, they are not outliers. They represent countless young people around the world who are already shaping solutions in their communities. What they show us is clear: when young people are trusted and supported with the right resources, they can drive meaningful and lasting change.

What happens when we trust youth to lead climate action?

What happens when we trust youth to lead climate action?

What happens when we trust youth to lead climate action?

What happens when we trust youth to lead climate action?

What happens when we trust youth to lead climate action?

Sundus Sohail, Pakistan

Restoring coral reefs, restoring community trust

Along Pakistan’s coastline, coral reefs are disappearing, eroded by pollution, overfishing, warming waters and neglect. For many, the loss feels irreversible, but Sundus Sohail and her team are proving otherwise. Through their Reef Revival Initiative, they are using a practical, community-driven natural method that blends science, Indigenous knowledge and local stewardship to bring damaged reefs back to life.

Working with over 250 fishers, students and Indigenous communities, Sundus and her team are establishing 10 coral nurseries, housing 200 coral fragments rescued from damaged reefs.

“Restoration is possible, but only if the people who depend on the ocean are part of the process. Once communities see corals as living assets, everything changes: behaviour, income and the future of our coastline.” —Sundus Sohail

What happens when we trust youth to lead climate action?

Their work is based on a natural, non-invasive coral propagation method, a process that mirrors how forests are replanted on land. Instead of using metal grids, pipes or chemicals, Sundus’ team collects broken coral fragments, attaches them to live rock using a biodegradable catalyst, and grows them in underwater nurseries until they are ready to be replanted onto degraded reefs. No toxins, no artificial structure, just regeneration designed around the biology of the reef itself. The approach is low-cost, sustainable and community-owned, and it's already showing results.

And the momentum is growing. The trust first placed in Sundus and her team through UNDP’s Youth4Climate initiative has now been echoed on the global stage: the Reef Revival Initiative has been officially endorsed by the UN Ocean Decade, under the Marine Life 2030 programme. This endorsement not only validates the work being done on the ground, it connects the project to a worldwide network of scientists, conservation actors and ocean innovators working towards shared goals for a healthier ocean.

For Sundus, restoring reefs isn’t just about marine life. It’s about protecting coastlines as well as livelihoods and giving people, especially young people, a sense of agency over their environment.

What happens when we trust youth to lead climate action?

What happens when we trust youth to lead climate action?

What happens when we trust youth to lead climate action?

What happens when we trust youth to lead climate action?

Elvis Thomas, Liberia

Driving clean mobility forward

In Monrovia, traffic fumes are a daily reality. For many, getting across the city means long, expensive and unsafe commutes. But on the streets of Paynesville, a quiet revolution is gaining ground, on three wheels.

Elvis Thomas is piloting Liberia’s first fleet of electric tuk-tuks. But these are not just any tuk-tuks: they’re operated by women, powered by clean solar energy, and designed to transform both mobility and livelihoods.

“We’re not just changing how people move. We’re changing who drives development. This project is about trust. Trusting young people to lead, and trusting that clean solutions can work here, too.” —Elvis Thomas

What happens when we trust youth to lead climate action?

The electric fleet cuts CO₂ emissions by 95 percent and reduces operating costs by more than 70 percent compared to traditional vehicles, making the model both climate-smart and economically viable.

Each electric tuk-tuk in the fleet is operated by a woman driver, trained, licensed, and working in a sector historically inaccessible to them. With safer vehicles and lower running costs, the model is opening new pathways for women-led entrepreneurship in a country where economic opportunities for women are often scarce.

Elvis and his team are also working on the infrastructure side: charging stations, maintenance workshops and partnerships with policymakers to make the model scalable. They are demonstrating that sustainable mobility involves more than just vehicles; it also involves the people and systems that drive them.

Elvis believes that electric transportation is essential for safer, healthier communities, not a luxury or a far-off dream. He is demonstrating that the path to net zero may also lead to equity by emphasizing women, inclusion and climate resilience.

What happens when we trust youth to lead climate action?

What happens when we trust youth to lead climate action?

What happens when we trust youth to lead climate action?

What happens when we trust youth to lead climate action?

Specioza Nakate, Uganda

Turning plastic pollution into green livelihoods

In Uganda’s capital, Kampala, plastic is everywhere. Bottles clog drainage systems. Floodwaters rise with every storm. For communities in low-income areas, the impacts are especially harsh, breeding disease, displacing families and deepening cycles of vulnerability.

Specioza Nakate has lived this reality. But she’s also chosen to change it.

Through her youth- and women-led initiative, Specioza has trained more than 200 young people, mostly women, in eco-design, digital marketing and climate leadership, equipping them with the skills to turn discarded materials into income-generating products.

Specioza’s work doesn’t end at recycling. Much of the collected plastic is sent to another Youth4Climate awardee, Sonko Jamal, whose project converts waste into clean cooking fuel, creating a chain of youth-led climate solutions that reinforce one another across the country. What started as a clean-up campaign has become a full-fledged circular economy enterprise, one that creates jobs, raises awareness and trains youth in green skills.

“We’re not just cleaning up. We’re creating new pathways for green skills and dignity.” —Specioza Nakate

What happens when we trust youth to lead climate action?

Specioza is expanding her work, partnering with local authorities and inspiring other youth networks to replicate the model across Uganda. Her initiative sits at the intersection of climate innovation, gender equity and community resilience, proving that when young people are trusted, they don’t just respond to the climate crisis, they redesign the future.

What happens when we trust youth to lead climate action?

What happens when we trust youth to lead climate action?

What happens when we trust youth to lead climate action?

Pablo Castellanos Ramelli, Colombia

Powering Indigenous communities with clean energy

In the remote Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, in northern Colombia, the Arhuaco Indigenous community of Katanzama has long lived without access to reliable electricity. Schools and health outposts operated in the dark, vaccine refrigeration was unreliable, and students lacked access to digital tools.

Pablo Castellanos Ramelli, a young clean energy entrepreneur, saw this as a matter of justice rather than merely a technological issue.

Working with the community, Pablo and his team created a circular solar energy system that gives a second life to discarded EV batteries. The remanufactured batteries, paired with solar panels, now provide continuous power to lighting, digital classrooms and cold storage for life-saving vaccines, benefiting more than 150 residents, including over 100 students.

“We’re bringing clean power to the people who’ve been left out, not just of energy systems, but of the decisions shaping them.” —Pablo Castellanos Ramelli

What happens when we trust youth to lead climate action?

By reusing batteries with 40 kWh capacity, the system avoided 8.1 tonnes of CO₂ emissions and 325 kg of hazardous waste. But for Pablo, success wasn’t just technical. It was critical that the project responded to the community’s own needs and vision, not an external agenda. “We didn’t want to impose change,” he stressed. “We were here to listen.” That’s why the project began with dialogue, ensuring that the solution would support, not disrupt, the Arhuaco way of life. And because the project trained local residents to maintain the technology, it created community ownership from the start.

Pablo’s work offers a blueprint for energy equity: a modular, scalable and circular solution for off-grid electrification.

He is now working to replicate the model in other Indigenous territories, proving that climate tech can be decolonial, regenerative and deeply human.

What happens when we trust youth to lead climate action?

What happens when we trust youth to lead climate action?

What happens when we trust youth to lead climate action?

What happens when we trust youth to lead climate action?

Luís Guillermo, Bolivia

Growing the future, one smart garden at a time

In La Paz, a high-altitude city perched more than 3,500 metres above sea level, climate pressures are colliding with urban sprawl and food insecurity. As Bolivia’s third-largest city grows, fresh, affordable food is becoming harder to access.

Luis Guillermo is planting a new path forward. Through his youth-led initiative, Movimiento Propacha, he and his team are building Bolivia’s first “smart school gardens”, transforming schoolyards into learning spaces where young people grow food, learn climate resilience and reconnect with the land.

By combining hydroponics, drip irrigation and water sensors with traditional farming practices, the Movimiento Propacha is helping students understand both the science and the culture of growing food. Over 300 students from two public schools have taken part in workshops on climate-smart agriculture, nutrition and food security, learning to grow everything from lettuce to native herbs.

“We start with seeds. But what we’re really planting is awareness, skills and community.” —Luís Guillermo

What happens when we trust youth to lead climate action?

Luís and his team are now expanding the model with municipal and community backing. The smart gardens are already improving school diets, building climate awareness and offering a replicable blueprint for sustainable food production in cities facing environmental and social pressures.

What happens when we trust youth to lead climate action?

What happens when we trust youth to lead climate action?

What happens when we trust youth to lead climate action?

What happens when we trust youth to lead climate action?

The stories of these five changemakers are captured in Generation Trust: A Global Climate Story in the Making, a youth-led climate documentary produced by Youth4Climate, an initiative co-led by UNDP and the Italian Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security, and supported by the 8x1000 funds of the Italian Buddhist Institute Soka Gakkai.

The film is not about individual heroes. It’s about systems, and what happens when youth are trusted to transform them. Watch it now here.

Youth4Climate (Y4C) is a global initiative, launched in May 2022, co-led by the Government of Italy and UNDP. The initiative has its Secretariat at the UNDP Rome Centre for Climate Action and Energy Transition, and is supported by the Italian Ministry of Environment and Energy Security and the 8x1000 funds of the Italian Buddhist Institute Soka Gakkai.

Y4C brings together existing and new online and offline resources, tools, capacities, partnerships, networks and movements led by and designed for youth, with a strong focus on the implementation of solutions, for a more sustained impact on climate on the ground. It aims to foster an inclusive, safe and enabling environment for youth to lead and partner with other stakeholders on climate action.

Follow Youth4Climate on LinkedIn, Instagram and X.

Footnotes

Photos: Clara Wetzel

FootNotes

Photos: Clara Wetzel

© 2026 United Nations Development Programme

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