Temporal tensions in young adults’ efforts towards influencing institutional climate action

ABSTRACT

In this Viewpoint we draw attention to an overlooked tension at the intersection of young adults’ and older adults’ everyday life-world temporalities, and argue that this tension presents a considerable intergenerational challenge for the enabling of young people’s agency for climate action. We articulate the often-cyclical nature of young people’s everyday temporalities, especially for those within formal education systems based on year-on-year ‘progression’, highlighting both the benefits of such cyclical opportunities for involvement in climate action and challenges inherent to the necessary ‘moving on’ at the end of each cycle. We contrast these forward-moving (annual) cycles with the protracted, often non-linear chains of decision-making that characterise, first, the (older adult-led) systems upon which youth-led pro-environmental action seeks to have an impact, and second, the (also older adult-led) structures – of funding, coordination, legitimacy-making, and other forms of ‘resource’ – that enable and support youth-led initiatives. By narrating our negotiation of these tensions, we look afresh at the idea of intergenerational relations for climate action, not through the typical lens of age-based generational identity (and their synergies or tensions), but through the lived temporalities of younger and older adults, with their contrasting orientations to and responsibilities towards the levers of meaningful action.

KEYWORDS:

• Youth
• temporalities
• progress
• cycles
• tensions
• organisational structures

View correction statement:

Correction

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article was originally published with errors, which have now been corrected in the online version. Please see Correction (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14733285.2023.2292446)

Notes

1 DBS checks are a process used by employers in the UK to ascertain whether an individual has a criminal record. They are used to determine the suitability of that individual to work in a role with a particular level of responsibility, e.g. working with children or other vulnerable groups. In the UK a DBS check is required of anyone working with young people under the age of 18.

2 We recognise that the nature of twenty-first century work means that career changes – at all life stages – are now more common than in previous generations. However, it is important to consider the impact on young adults’ sense of agency of the perception that they have, at some point in the past, made a ‘wrong’ decision or missed a critical opportunity. We are prompted to wonder about the capacity of projects like ours to inspire action in the face of such inertia presented by feelings of already having ‘missed the boat’.

3 Given the tight timeframe we knew we had to work to, we opted to work with young adults aged over 18 as this reduced (somewhat) the amount of gatekeeping and administration we would need to navigate in order to build a team quickly. Our aspiration has always been to involve younger ages in the development of Chester Youth CAN, but our ability to do so is ultimately determined by the forces we discuss in this Viewpoint.

4 The youth conference formed part of a larger, four-day city-wide event. One day was dedicated to the business community in the region, one to the youth conference, and days three and four to an ‘expo’ aimed at the general public. The dates were set by the overall event organisers and we had no scope to influence them.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by University of Chester [grant number: QR723].