Green Rising
Mobilising millions of young people to take climate action, build green skills, and access green livelihoods.
How it works | Impact | Our unique approach | Stories | Partners | Get involved
Heatwaves, deepening droughts, rising floods and worsening pollution: a generation of young people are inheriting a world that is already in a climate crisis.
Young people did not cause this crisis, but they cannot ignore it. Because in many of their communities, taking immediate action is a matter of survival.
A generation rising for people and planet
Across the globe, a powerful climate movement of young people is emerging, rising to the challenge and taking grassroots actions to safeguard their own futures and the well-being of their communities.
Green Rising is part of that global movement. It's mission, by 2030, is to support 100 million young people globally to take grassroots climate action while putting them on a pathway to securing sustainable livelihoods and to lead the green transition.
In just three years, Green Rising has mobilised 45+ million young people across more than 40 countries to take tangible climate action, restoring ecosystems, conserving water, managing waste, and building community resilience.​
How the Green Rising programme works
Green Rising is a global initiative led by UNICEF Generation Unlimited alongside a global consortium of public, private, and youth partners. A registered UNFCCC Cooperative Climate Initiative, Green Rising supports young people to take climate action while helping them build green skills, launch green ventures, and secure jobs in the green economy.
The programme focuses on three areas:
Broad-based climate action
Young people take action on a wide range of environmental issues, from planting trees and monitoring air pollution to conserving water, reducing waste and recycling. These actions build practical skills while delivering visible impact in local communities.
Skills and Livelihoods
Young people gain green skills, create green ventures and access pathways into jobs in the green economy. This includes both formal and informal learning opportunities that help young people connect climate action with future livelihoods.
Systems strengthening and advocacy
Young people scale their impact by embedding solutions in government programmes and leveraging their collective voices to drive policy shifts that deliver change in their communities and in the world
A sample of environmental impact
Children and young people have inherited a crisis they didn’t create, yet they are proving the power of individual and collective action. Every step they lead on climate builds green skills and climate literacy while creating tangible environmental results.
Their actions inspire and challenge organizations, businesses, and governments to do more and invest in youth as lifelong sustainability champions to shape the future of their communities and economies.
A sample of environmental impact results from countries and implementation partners highlights the power of this generation to build long-term resilience and adaptation:
What makes Green Rising unique?
Green Rising works with the most powerful and the most vulnerable on an equal footing. It is a vast global network of governments, private sector organisations and youth groups that prioritises local action and centres on youth skills and livelihood opportunities.
Green Rising stands out through its combination of:
- Three connected pathways, linking broad-based climate action, green skills and livelihoods, and systems strengthening and advocacy for a just green transition
- Tangible environmental impact, focusing on biodiversity, water conservation, waste reduction, clean energy and pollution
- Local relevance, working through youth networks and UNICEF Country Offices to respond to community-specific needs.
- A focus on both sustainable communities and sustainable livelihoods for youth
- Strong public-private-youth partnerships, bringing together governments, companies, youth organizations and technical experts to scale action
Stories of change from across the globe
From installing solar panels in Mongolia to planting trees in Rwanda; from monthly actions in community groups across Brazil to soak pits in India; from green jobs in Egypt to circular economy entrepreneurs in South Africa, young people are leading the way through Green Rising.
Green Rising partners with governments, the private sector, and young people, so that no-one, especially girls and those most vulnerable to climate events, are left behind without skills for survival and livelihoods in a world moving to a green economy.
A list of stories that demonstrate the programme's global impact to date.
In Salgado, Brazil, a group successfully advocated and closed an open-air dump harming their community, planting saplings to restore the site. This is part of #EntreNoClima, a movement mobilizing 382,000 young people across 759 municipalities through Climate Action Clubs. Led by adolescent groups under UNICEF’s Municipal Seal Initiative, these clubs drive local climate solutions and engage vulnerable communities in the Amazon and Semi-arid regions.
In India's West Bengal, Siraj and his friends lead weekly clean-up drives along the Ganga River. Their pro-planet actions are reported on the #MeriLiFE app supported by the government of India. Together, they've removed over 15,000 kilograms of waste while also promoting actions to reduce e-waste, save energy, conserve water, and say no to single-use plastics.
UNICEF's U-Report community for youth engaged 113,000 users via a chatbot equipping them with strategic thinking skills to boost their environmental advocacy, actions, and campaigns. The chatbot guided users to clearly define the problems they aimed to address, explore possible solutions, set specific goals, identify target audiences and potential supporters, and craft impactful messages with the right tone. A total of 536,309 U-Reporters were reached with Green Rising messaging.
Partner with Generation Unlimited
How you can get involved
Green Rising is uniting partners to support youth climate action globally. We invite partners from all sectors to:
- Support scale-up in high-demand regions
- Fund national-level platforms and programmes
- Invest in youth-led climate enterprises
For more details, contact [email protected].
