Strengthening the youth climate movement in 2024

This year was another big one for Young Friends of the Earth Scotland. In spring 2024 we launched our new strategy focussed on movement support, and a new internal structure that better reflects our values and makes it easier for folk to get involved. 

Our new strategy is built around the knowledge that to achieve the radical action that we need on climate change, young people need to build our own power rather than just appealing to power. We need a strong, connected and supported movement for collective action, with a diversity of tactics and solutions – and the Young FoES network aims to support this to flourish. 

As the year draws to an end, we’re reflecting on the progress we’ve already made in the different areas of our new strategy.  

Connection

A connected movement is a strong movement, and in 2024 we continued our work to increase connection and collaboration between young people taking action across Scotland. 

January kicked off with Aberdeen Youth Activist Gathering, which we hosted alongside People and Planet and Fridays for Future Aberdeen. We had a whole day of workshops on climate justice, campaigning, tactics, protest rights and more, and learned about all the great stuff happening in Aberdeen.  

Aberdeen may be Europe’s oil capital, but it has a thriving and growing community of young people organising for a just transition to a better future for their city. 

2024 also saw the long-awaited return of our residential skillshare weekends! In April we came together with nearly 40 young people from across Scotland in beautiful Pitlochry to share skills and connect.  

We valued being able to spend a whole weekend together, living together and organising in a way that aligns with our values, with everyone doing their part to make the weekend run smoothly (including helping out the excellent SKIFA in the kitchen to feed us all – hit them up for all your activist catering needs!) And hearing about all of the different youth-led actions and campaigns happening across Scotland was definitely a good source of hope and optimism. 

Gathering together and connecting is important for our movement, but it’s also important for activist wellbeing. Fun, friends and laughter with people who get it are important antidotes to eco anxiety – which is why our Events Working Group have started organising more social events this year, starting with a climate board games afternoon in Edinburgh. 

Learning together 

During our strategy process we talked loads about the lack of access to political education and organising skills for young people, and decided we really want to keep focussing on this work. 

As well as learning from each other at skillshares and gatherings, we hosted workshops across Scotland on topics including in-depth facilitation training, tackling eco anxiety, and exploring movement ecology. 

In October we had a train the trainer session to get more of us skilled up to deliver workshops across Scotland in 2025. Watch this space! 

We also launched our intro to climate justice booklet this year – written by young people for young people. You can read more about it’s creation in this blog post. You can download the booklet or order physical copies for your group. It also comes with a further reading list which includes articles, podcasts and videos, and an activity which you can use with your group to explore these concepts together.  

We really hope that people find this a valuable resource for learning, sharing, starting conversations and inspiring people to learn more. 

Supporting climate action across Scotland

In 2024 we continued to support key groups and campaigns through the year, adding capacity and highlighting calls for action. 

Fave moments included Michael strutting his stuff on the upcycled fashion runway as part of the pressure to improve Scotland’s Circular Economy Bill, running a stall at Edinburgh climate festival chatting about stopping a new gas power station at Peterhead, and rallying outside the high court in Edinburgh in continued support of the campaign to stop Rosebank oil field (at time of writing the outcome of the Rosebank case has not been announced – we’re crossing our fingers that the courts make the right decision). 

This year also saw the Scottish Government betraying current and future generations by scrapping its 2030 climate targets. We made sure young people were there to hold the government to account, joining the rally outside the first ministers’ residence. We will continue to represent youth voice and push our decision makers for better in 2025. 

Standing in solidarity 

We know we need to connect struggles in the fight for climate justice. We aim to create greater connection between young people in the climate movement and other struggles for justice, identifying root causes and shared struggles, building the foundations for solidarity and collective liberation.  

This year we formed a new working group to focus on this work – the Intersectionality Working Group.  

We have started by building on our work drawing links between climate and disability justice. So far we have been redeveloping our workshop on access and inclusion in the climate movement, assessing our own policies and practices, and creating regular internal learning spaces.  

Looking forward

Scotland needs a vibrant and thriving youth climate movement to fight for the radical system change we need. Through connection, education, support and solidarity, our youth network is doing vital work to help support this movement.  

We recently held an autumnal community weekender, where a core group of our organisers came together to reflect on how things were going, and get skilled up to organise in 2025. We’re looking forward to expanding and rolling out work over the next year, and continuing to support a powerful youth movement for change in Scotland in 2025.  

Here’s to another year of young people leading the fight for people and the planet!