Climate Futures and Just Transformations: Agency and young people's political imaginaries
Seminar | 26 June 2024

As part of the Monthly Cycle of Seminars about Social Movements and Political Action, the seminar "Climate Futures and Just Transformations: Agency and young people's political imaginaries" takes place on June 26 at 5pm in a hybrid format.

 

Speakers

Tânia R. Santos (University of Minho)

Dora Rebelo (CIS-Iscte)

Daniela Ferreira da Silva (University of Minho)

Mehmet Ali Üzelgün (CIES-Iscte)

Anabela Carvalho (University of Minho)

 

Venue

Iscte, Ed. 4, Room A202

 

Abstract

'The burden of accumulated scientific evidence unequivocally shows that climate change has profound and multifarious implications for human societies, as well as for biophysical systems, which will be aggravated in the coming decades. Its impacts, and the mitigation and adaptation measures to contain them, will especially affect people that are presently young. In Portugal and around the world, the future of young people and of other age groups will also be shaped by other sustainability-related challenges, as the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated.  The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2018) and numerous analysts have highlighted the need for ‘transformative systemic change’ in order to meet the targets of the Paris Agreement and Agenda 2030’s Sustainable Development Goals. Several perspectives and proposals have emerged to address the need to foster social, economic and environmental sustainability transformations, as well as support their agents and drivers.Recent mobilisations around climate change have clearly indicated that young people are or want to be involved in climate change debates and futures. The JUSTFUTURES project will contribute to understanding young people's agency and political imaginaries. It will do so by mapping existing collective action groups, analysing narratives and media(ted) discourses of climate futures and examining, through extensive field work, young people'.