Save the date, 15.12.23 Dr Laura Bullon-Cassis : "A game show at the end of the world”

What do the lived experiences of young people tell us about the currency of youth in UN climate conferences (COPs) at a time when youth is endowed with symbolic capital? Initially, self-representing as "youth" at COPs appears to open doors for young people, particularly since the creation of additional youth engagement mechanisms that followed the 2019 Fridays for Future protests. Based on four years of fieldwork in UN climate summits, this presentation will show that youth can, in fact, be both a limited and limiting currency in global politics. Indeed, the currency is finite, leading different youth groups to compete for speaking slots and visibility; further, an increasing number of young people have realized that youth is a limiting currency to advocate for environmental justice claims. These findings, which would not have been possible without an ethnographic and collaborative approach, contribute to existing calls challenging the ways that theory, research, and practice are oriented toward young people in climate politics.

Laura Bullon-Cassis is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy of the Geneva Graduate Institute. Her doctoral dissertation, awarded with Distinction by the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University, explored the category of youth in climate discourse with a focus on the lived experiences of young people in UN climate conferences. Her broader research interests are at the nexus of environmental justice, climate activism, and ethnographic approaches to environmental politics. As a Team Leader for the International Institute for Sustainable Development’s Reporting Services, she regularly attends UN environmental conferences. She holds a BSc in Sociology and an MSc in Global Politics from the London School of Economics.