Green Rising powers up to tackle climate change
Young people are taking the lead in vibrant cultures of environmental action and service.
Compared to their grandparents, a child born in 2021 is likely to experience seven times more heatwaves, twice as many wildfires, and nearly three times as many droughts, river floods and crop failures1. But far from being indifferent, or even turning to despair, millions of young people are already responding to the climate-change challenge – leading, designing and deploying solutions in their communities.
These youth champions represent learning and hope, especially for young people facing the harshest brunt of climate change. Their actions serve as motivation, inspiration and a challenge to governments, the United Nations, organizations and businesses to do more and accelerate progress towards a sustainable environment.
The response is surpassing expectations
Inspired by this generation’s resilience and promise, a coalition led by UNICEF’s Generation Unlimited alongside a truly global consortium of public, private and youth partners teamed up to launch Green Rising in 2023, at COP28.
The initiative is supported by our lead government partners, Canada and the State of Qatar. The lead private sector partner is Capgemini, a global technologies service provider. Other partners include Accenture, the IKEA Foundation, SAP, the Tony Elumelu Foundation, Unilever, Goodwall, and the World Organization of the Scouts Movement.
The original goal was to support 10 million young people to become the climate advocates their communities need by 2025. By the end of 2024, however, Green Rising had already engaged more than 11 million young people in grass-roots action across 30 countries.
Highlights include:
· 19.815 million trees planted
· 14.7 billion litres of water conserved
· 149,823 kilograms of waste managed/recycled
· 357.6 hectares of land rehabilitated
· 284,000 kilowatts of energy saved
· 1 million schoolchildren participating in youth-led disaster risk reduction training
For a glimpse of this youth mobilization potential in protecting their communities from the climate crisis, be sure to check out Green Rising’s video, 11 Million Strong. Reports from just a few of the countries involved are featured below.
In India, Green Rising is mobilizing youth-led climate solutions across 26 states. In the first half of 2024 alone, 7 million young people took environmental action through clubs, summer camps, community groups and events organized by government ministries, civil society organizations, foundations, colleges and UNICEF field offices. Awareness-raising activities include painting competitions, and workshops on reducing e-waste and sustainable lifestyles conducted across schools, colleges and communities.
In the #Plant4Mother campaign, students planted millions of saplings. Students engaged in water conservation activities such as clean-ups of spring-water sources and fixing dripping taps and pipes. Villages built soak pits and promoted student-led conservation and maintenance of rainwater harvesting systems. Waste collection and recycling drives, including beach and river clean-ups, were conducted in partnership with local municipal corporations and waste recycling partners.
In Rwanda, Green Rising Ambassadors and Youth Umuganda teamed up to plant 731,000 trees across the country. Youth Umuganda is a green- and youth-focused adaptation of the monthly national holiday that engages adults in community service.
The first Youth Umuganda, held in October 2024, in Gisagara District, gathered 2,000 young people to reforest an erosion-prone hillside by planting more than 11,000 trees. In addition to tree planting, participants carried out environmental clean-ups and implemented land rehabilitation and climate mitigation measures. Some of these young people – primarily young women – were employed to prepare the sites for tree planting, gaining valuable income-generating skills in tree nursery management and sustainable land management practices.
UNICEF Rwanda partnered with government agencies, the National Youth Council and youth-led organizations such as We Got Your Back to coordinate the ‘green action’ days. Altogether, over 431,000 young people took part in the Green Rising-focused Umugandas.
Alongside the Umugandas, UNICEF Rwanda provided training for 150 Green Rising Ambassadors on environmental conservation, youth mobilization for climate action, tree planting and maintenance, green entrepreneurship, leveraging social media for climate action awareness, and gender-inclusive climate action. In turn, these ambassadors mobilized 343,000 young people to take green actions in their communities and schools.
In Brazil, the UNICEF Country Office launched #EntreNoClimaUNICEF in September 2022. Within its first year, the initiative surpassed its original three-year target and quickly became a pioneering model for the Green Rising movement. By December 2024, 382,000 young people had taken climate action across 759 municipalities, reaching and mobilizing over 2 million people through #EntreNoClima channels and activities.
A key driver of this momentum has been the involvement of a government network of more than 15,000 adolescent citizen groups, known as ‘NUCAs.’ These groups created 883 Climate Action Clubs, directly engaging 368,145 people in vulnerable communities. This strong local engagement is leaving a legacy of shifting awareness, attitudes, and—most importantly—behaviours around climate change, with lasting positive impacts for communities across Brazil.
In the municipality of Itaberaba, for example, young activists led a powerful campaign to reduce plastic waste. Their efforts encouraged local shops to swap plastic bags for reusable eco-bags and helped boost recycling rates by developing a mobile phone app that connects residents with professional waste pickers and by setting up electronic waste collection points. The group also reduced food waste at the public market by establishing a system to send food scraps to family farms for composting and reforested the community by planting over 500 fruit tree seedlings. Stories like these illustrate the transformative impact young people are having on the ground, paving the way for a greener, more sustainable future.
In South Africa, UNICEF’s Enviro-Champs programme empowers young people to mitigate climate impacts in their communities while gaining vital skills for their future. In a country where 64 per cent of young people aged 15–24 are not in employment, education or training, the initiative brings opportunity. Serving as part-time employees, Enviro-Champs monitor water quality, report burst pipes and overflowing sewers, maintain trails, conduct river clean-ups and raise awareness about water and sanitation issues.
Young people also receive training on the environment and conservation, financial management, computer skills, street theatre and door-to-door knowledge-building. Since launching the initiative in 2023, about 1,000 young people have participated, and a rapid scale-up is in progress to expand its environmental impact and reach more young people across South Africa. The initiative recently partnered with Yoma (Youth Agency Marketplace) to offer yet more skills-building options.
What’s next? Keeping our focus on skills development while building on this tremendous momentum
Building on the youth-driven momentum of 2024, Green Rising is scaling up in countries where young people are already active – and expanding into new countries. A particular focus for 2025 is on supporting young people in urban slums and informal settlements to lead localized climate action.
With a strengthened and expanded youth force, Green Rising aims to achieve:
• 15 million young people taking green actions
• 100 million trees planted and nurtured, with a focus on cultivating green spaces in urban areas
• 1.5 million kg of waste managed/recycled
• 20 billion litres of water conserved
• 500,000 young people in urban areas forming community disaster response teams, maintaining drainage systems to prevent flooding, establishing early warning networks, and monitoring air and water quality.
We are well aware that the ongoing transition towards a green economy is creating winners and losers within and across countries2. Equipping young people with the capacity and know-how to analyse and address global and local climate concerns will level the playing field and enable their success as lifelong sustainability champions for a green transition that leaves no one behind3.
There were over 1.2 billion people aged 16–24 in the world as of 2024, representing a decisive force for addressing the climate crisis. According to research co-developed by Capgemini Research Institute and Generation Unlimited4, while 67 per cent of young people worry about the impact of climate change, 72 per cent believe there is still time to address the impacts – and 60 per cent of those surveyed agree that developing green skills will unlock new career opportunities.
However, only 44 per cent of young people globally feel equipped with the skills they need for today’s green workforce. Furthermore, while 70 per cent believe that youth should be able to influence environmental policy, only 47 per cent feel that adults in their communities listen to and consider their views.
The evidence is clear that the young generation is ready and willing to participate. In fact, their eagerness to work with Green Rising on climate issues has surpassed all expectations. Our three-year target of engaging 10 million was outdone in less than one year, as more than 11 million young people stepped up to take action.
We have now doubled our ambition and are aiming to mobilize 20 million young people by the end of 2026 through volunteerism, advocacy, and green skills, jobs and entrepreneurship. This is a phenomenally heartening development as we head into the second half of 2025. We look forward to sharing more climate-action news in the future!
Learn more about the Green Rising launch in Barbados and the appointment of Prime Minister Mia Mottley as Global Chair of the initiative.
References
1 Thiery, Wim et al., ‘Intergenerational Inequities in Exposure to Climate Extremes’, Science, vol. 374, no. 6564, 26 September 2021, pp. 158–160.
2 Benayad, Amine, et al., ‘Too Hot to Think Straight, Too Cold to Panic: Landing the economic case for climate action with decision makers’, Boston Consulting Group, University of Cambridge climaTRACES Lab and Cambridge Judge Business School, March 2025, p. 26, <https://web-assets.bcg.com/a1/fc/811b182f481fbe039d51776ec172/landing-the-economic-case-for-climate-action-with-decision-makers-wo-spine-mar-2025.pdf>, accessed 16 March 2015.
3 See, for example: International Labour Organization, ‘Just Transition Policy Brief: Skills development for a just transition,’ ILO, New York, October 2022, <www.ilo.org/sites/default/files/wcmsp5/groups/public/@ed_emp/@emp_ent/documents/publication/wcms_860617.pdf>.
4 Capgemini Research Institute and Generation Unlimited, ‘Youth Perspectives on Climate: Preparing for a sustainable future’, 2025, <www.capgemini.com/insights/research-library/global-youth-and-sustainability>.
