Global Youth Declaration On The Environment 2025

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Preamble

Children and youth present this Declaration to UNEA, UNEP, and all stakeholders as a call for urgent, ambitious, and inclusive environmental action amid global uncertainty, weakening multilateralism, and the worsening triple planetary crisis. Trust in global environmental governance is declining as climate, biodiversity, and pollution crises accelerate, and financial systems fail to support affected countries. Still, renewed ambition is emerging through frameworks like the Pact for the Future. UNEA-7 must act boldly, grounded in science and intergenerational justice, with youth recognised as present partners in environmental solutions.

Executive summary

The Declaration reflects youth priorities for addressing the triple planetary crisis through just, inclusive, science-based solutions. Over 2,000 organisations and 12,000 young people have contributed. Youth demand six major transformations:

  1. Reform environmental governance for coherence, stronger UNEP/UNEA roles, and science-informed decisions.

  2. Embed intergenerational equity through institutionalised youth participation, predictable funding, and protection of environmental rights.

  3. Reform global financial systems to deliver fair, concessional, and innovative environmental finance.

  4. Transform extractive economic drivers, reduce consumption, phase out fossil fuels, shift to agroecology, and strengthen critical minerals governance.

  5. Confront pollution with a plastics treaty, hazardous chemical phase-outs, and strict polluter accountability.

  6. Protect nature and enhance climate resilience through ecosystem-specific targets, “protect-manage-restore” approaches, Indigenous leadership, and integrated early warning systems.

  1. The role of children and youth in environmental governance

    Growing Youth Engagement in UNEP Spaces

    Since UNEA-6, the Children and Youth Major Group (CYMG) has increased youth representation across UNEP processes, including CPR meetings, UNEP’s Medium-Term Strategy, the Ministerial Declaration, and more than 13 thematic and regional consultations.
    CYMG now includes:

    • 2,000+ youth organisations (including 68 UNEP-accredited groups)

    • 12,000+ individual members across all six UNEP regions

    This reflects an expanding understanding that youth are essential contributors to global environmental governance.

    Building Youth Mechanisms Where None Exist

    Youth have helped shape new participation pathways, including:

    • contributing to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Panel on Chemicals, Waste, and Pollution (ISP-CWP)

    • engaging in the global INC process on plastic pollution

    • co-founding new engagement networks such as the Youth Plastics Action Network (YPAN) and the Ocean Science and Governance Network (OSG)

    These mechanisms ensure youth voices are present in emerging global policy processes.

    Regional Engagement Across All UNEP Regions

    In preparation for UNEA-7, CYMG facilitated youth consultations in all regions for the first time, generating regional statements and priorities.

    Examples:

    • Africa Youth Day (Nairobi): Focused on climate resilience, biodiversity, and justice.

    • Asia-Pacific Forum (Fiji): Centred on plastic pollution, just transition, and Pacific leadership.

    • European Youth Days: Covered intergenerational equity, pollution, and chemicals.

    • LAC Youth Environment Forum (Peru): Highlighted inclusive governance and youth leadership.

    • Caribbean Youth Climate Conference (Jamaica): First sub-regional event linking pollution, climate justice, and ocean protection.

    • Arab Youth Environment Forum: Focused on environmental justice in conflict-prone areas.

    These regional statements directly fed into UNEP priorities.

    Global Thematic Contributions

    Youth also contributed to global thematic processes:

    • Youth Forum on the Future of the Environment (New York)

    • Youth Forum on Climate Protection & Montreal Protocol (Bangkok)

    • Youth and Stakeholder Assembly at INC-5 (Busan)

    • Zero Waste & Circularity Youth Day (Osaka), producing the "Mottainai Youth Declaration"

    • MEA Bootcamp training 2,000+ participants, including government negotiators

    These engagements demonstrate the capacity of youth to shape high-level environmental outcomes.

2. Policy solutions for bold, systemic action in a time of overlapping crises

2.1 Reforming Governance for Effective and Efficient Environmental Action

Recommendation 1

Fragmentation across multilateral environmental agreements must be addressed by identifying opportunities for synergies, improving coordination, and harmonising reporting and data systems, including through joint secretariats and greater collaboration between science-policy bodies. This would reduce duplication, improve efficiency, and strengthen coherence across the environmental governance system.

Recommendation 2

UNEP and UNEA should be strengthened as the central platforms for global environmental dialogue and coordination, supported by targeted strategic communication, high-level diplomacy, and more coherent resolution-making. Member States should also improve their representation and engagement in Nairobi to ensure equitable and effective participation in UNEP processes.

Recommendation 3

Science must be embedded more deeply into decision-making by institutionalising scientific input during UNEA negotiations, enhancing UNEP’s science communication with other UN agencies and financial bodies, evaluating the impact of existing science-policy systems, and supporting young scientists through fellowships and quotas. Strengthening the Global Environment Outlook (GEO) as UNEP’s flagship assessment is also essential.

2.2 Embedding Intergenerational Equity in Environmental Governance

Recommendation 4

Meaningful youth participation should be institutionalised at local, national, and global levels, including within NDCs, NAPs, LTS, and NBSAPs, supported by transparent feedback systems, capacity-building, dedicated resources, and inclusive outreach tailored to marginalised youth and children. This ensures youth contributions influence environmental action from planning to implementation.

Recommendation 5

Youth engagement within UNEP and UNEA should be strengthened by reinforcing CYMG’s formal role across UNEP-administered agreements, securing predictable funding for the Youth Environment Assembly, recognising the Global Youth Declaration as an official input to UNEA, and ensuring Member States actively consult youth throughout decision processes.

Recommendation 6

Environmental knowledge must be democratised by making scientific documents more accessible through multilingual non-technical summaries, expanding environmental education and vocational green-skills training, and disseminating open-source educational modules that can be adapted globally.

Recommendation 7

Environmental rights should be upheld by recognising the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment in national laws, protecting environmental defenders, strengthening accountability mechanisms for both state and non-state actors, improving access to justice, and safeguarding the rights and wellbeing of people displaced by environmental impacts.

2.3 Reforming the International Financial Architecture

Recommendation 8

The global financial system must be transformed to unlock predictable, fair, and adequate concessional finance for environmental action, including through the reform of international financial institutions, improved voting structures, nature-positive lending criteria, and innovative financing sources such as fossil fuel levies, aviation and shipping taxes.

Recommendation 9

UNEP’s role in aligning financial flows with environmental goals should be enhanced by reviewing the mandate and accountability of UNEP-FI and by supporting countries—especially developing economies—to integrate environmental priorities into domestic financial planning and budgeting.

Recommendation 10

Domestic economic systems should shift toward sustainability by adopting metrics beyond GDP, phasing out environmentally harmful subsidies, encouraging growth of sustainable finance markets, integrating carbon pricing and green procurement into budgets, and requiring financial institutions to consider climate and biodiversity risks in their planning.

2.4 Transforming Extractive Economic Drivers

Recommendation 11

Countries should adopt science-based boundaries for sustainable resource use by mandating national resource footprint accounting and setting legally binding targets for absolute reductions in resource extraction, complemented by demand-side solutions such as walkable cities, public transport expansion, and passive building design.

Recommendation 12

A just and equitable clean energy transition must be accelerated by establishing clear timelines for phasing out fossil fuels, halting new exploration and expansion, and scaling up renewable energy technologies in alignment with the Paris Agreement and principles of equity.

Recommendation 13

Food systems must transition from industrial, extractive models to agroecology and nature-positive farming practices. This includes national roadmaps for food systems transformation, protection of Indigenous and smallholder rights, and establishment of food sovereignty protected areas to safeguard traditional farming methods and native seeds.

Recommendation 14

Global cooperation on resource governance should be strengthened through a legally binding treaty on critical minerals, improved traceability systems, mandatory FPIC for mineral projects, strong protections against child labour, and regulations requiring circular design, extended producer responsibility, and the right to repair.

2.5 Confronting Pollution

Recommendation 15

A legally binding global plastics treaty should be adopted by 2026, using majority voting if necessary, and supported by strong protections against corporate interference. The treaty should cap virgin plastic production, prioritise reduction, reuse, and redesign, and apply a precautionary approach to chemicals of concern.

Recommendation 16

Hazardous chemicals must be eliminated by expanding global bans on PFAS and other persistent pollutants, setting binding wastewater limits for pharmaceuticals and endocrine disruptors, and strengthening precautionary approaches across global chemicals frameworks.

Recommendation 17

Polluters should be held accountable through legally enforceable liability frameworks that require them to finance cleanup, remediation, and long-term health monitoring. Waste trade regulations should be strengthened, and national environmental health programmes should ensure transparency and community protection.

Recommendation 18

Waste management systems should be inclusive and circular by recognising waste pickers as essential environmental service providers, strengthening collaboration between formal and informal sectors, mandating source-separated waste collection, and enabling youth-led circular economy enterprises through supportive policies and funding.

2.6 Protecting Nature and Building Climate Resilience

Recommendation 19

Ecosystem-specific resilience targets should be integrated into NDCs, NAPs, and national biodiversity strategies, and aligned with disaster risk reduction through dedicated budgets that support nature-based solutions as core components of disaster prevention.

Recommendation 20

Integrated monitoring systems and early warning systems should combine AI, satellite, drone, and community-generated data to produce real-time, publicly accessible alerts. Citizen science should be formally incorporated into national monitoring efforts, supported by environmental data literacy programs.

Recommendation 21

A “Protect-Manage-Restore” hierarchy should be implemented through legislation that prioritises protection of intact ecosystems, followed by sustainable management and scientifically grounded restoration efforts that support ecological and social justice.

Recommendation 22

Indigenous Peoples and local communities should be empowered as ecosystem co-managers through legally mandated councils with full voting rights, guaranteed land and resource rights, integration of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), and sustained funding for Indigenous- and youth-led restoration initiatives.

Recommendation 23

Environmental protection should be integrated into conflict prevention and peacebuilding by systematically monitoring ecosystem impacts of conflict and establishing a dedicated international fund to support post-conflict environmental cleanup and restoration.