B

Youth Environmental Movernents < L61

common future. A big reason is that they place greater importancethan older generations on the underlying issue of intergenerationalequity with respect to the use of the planet's resources and the healthof the biosphere. As such, the InternationalYouth Climate Movement

[YCM), an informal group of youth and youth-run organizationswho regrrlarly meet on the sidelines of UN climate negotiations, has

spread to over 130 countries on the planet (Keenan 2010). The move-ment has also transformed from being merely an informal group ofyouth meeting on the sidelines of climate conferences to establishinga formal constituency recognized by the United Nations FrameworkConvention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the chief internationalbody responsible for climate negotiations. Having a formalized con-stituency in the UNFCCC is a big step towards having youth inputin the decision-making process. However, the battle is far from overbecause nation states are yet to recognize the role of youth in theprocess and make room for consultations at the national level.

To understand how youth have leapt to leadership, we must take acloser look at the issues attracting youth environmentalists and theirmethods of organization. Thanks to the internet, youth are usingpowerful weapons for organizing and defining new spaces to fightenvironmental battles. In the recent past, the use of simple tools likea "Google Group" or a "Facebook page" has proven useful to uniteyouth from across a country or across the planet - serving as a vitalplatform to build capacity and share knowledge on how to organizeand which issues to focus on.

The story of the Indian Youth Climate Network (IYCN) thusbecomes a story not just of youth using new technologies to excitebroad changes and awareness among the already empowered buttlre story of a unique attempt at what I came to think of as aertically-

integrated actiuism and an organization that seeks to create largersystemic change by inspiring a movement. Through an explorationof the history of IYCN, I will discuss the barriers to engaging youthin larger environmental movements and political processes, exploreleadership roles in such movements, and also outline the importanceof transnational exchanges in empowering youth in creative ways.

The study of this movement in the Indian context is importantbecause of the growing role of India in the multilateral environmentalagreements process. Furthermore, nearly 75 per cent of the Indianpopulation of 1.2 billion people is below the age of 35 and classifiedas "youth." This large demographic has the most to lose regarding

Not Politics o{ th. I]sorlYouth E nvironrnenhl Movernents

KartiLeya S;"gh

Corr."r, about their future and the desire to take concerted actionon the most challenging environmental issues of our times are puttingyouth at the forefront of the environmental movement. In a societywhere youth are often disregarded for their opinions on planningand policy, there are signs that the environmental movement mightprovide the best avenue in the fight for young people to gain spacein political processes. At the climate negotiations in Copenhagen,Denmark, in 2009, more than 1,500 of the participants out of a totalof 24,000 registered civil society representatives at the talks were"youth" (Keenan 2010). Though this number may seem small, con-sider that just two years prior at the United Nations (UN) climateconference in Bali, Indonesia, only 200 youth participated. The figurefor official youth participation mentioned above also fails to accountfor the thousands of unregistered young activists who gathered in thestreets and plazas of Copenhagen to signal their concern. Politicianssuch as President Mohamed Nasheed of the Republic of Maldiveshave recognized that in the fight for survival in the wake of climatechange, youth may prove their nation's strongest allies (Henn 2009).\Arhile most countries have regularly disregarded their commitmentsto Chapter 25.2 of Agenda2l, a framework for sustainable develop-ment outlined by the global community (that includes the role ofyouth in policy decision-making processes), it is unlikely that theywill be able to withstand the mounting pressure.

Global climate change presents a challenge for which youth cancome together across political boundaries to work towards saving their

162 ) KartiLnga Singh

intergenerational equity and the environment. The story and growthof IYCN offers many parallels and lessons to be drawn regarding thestrengths and weaknesses of youth environmental movements. It alsopresents an opportunity to look at the role that such movements canplay in a continent full of rapidly-emerging economies with diverg-ing geopolitical interests, all of which will have a large impact on theglobal environment.

Th. Histo"y "[ the Movement

In December 2007, the UNFCCC hosted a historic conference,where the future of the Kyoto Protocol was to be charted out ingood measure. The l3'h Conference of Parties (COP) was held inBali, Indonesia, and delegates were told that because of the heat andhumidity they could be a little bit more casual in their attire. The casu-alness of clothing may have slipped into casualness of effort, leadingmany critics to say afterward that the conference was somewhat ofa beach party as far as the negotiations were concemed (because noconcrete climate treaty was established). But something different washappening at the sidelines of this COP: youth in large numbers weregathering and getting their voices heard - in an organized fashion.For them, climate change was an issue of intergenerational equity,as they would be the ones to see the consequences of the inaction ofworld leaders during the negotiations.

Bali was not the first time that youth had gathered in a noticeablesize on the sidelines of a COP. In 2005, youth began by attendingCOP 11 hosted by the Canadian govemment in Montreal, Quebec.Since then, they have been demanding their right to influence negotia-tions and have their policy perspectives heard. Earlier in the year inMay 2005, the Energy Action Coalition (EAC) had been born in theUnited States (US) with the aim of uniting young people across the USfor a clean energy future. Its initial base was college campuses whereyoung people could demand clean energy to power their campuses.At the first national gathering in Washington DC, B0 young peopleconvened to help chart out the course of the US youth climate move-ment. Very quickly, capitalizing on their strength as a network, thecoalition was able to launch national campaigns to influence policiesof the state and federal governments. By 2009, the annual "PowerShift" summit saw participation of thousands of young people at vari-ous venues across the nation, and in Washington DC, 6,000 young

Youth Environmental Movements < l6Q

people stormed Capitol Hill and demanded a clean energy transitionfrom their representatives in Congress.

COP 12 was held in Nairobi in 2006, and by then similar networksof change had formed in both Canada and Australia with the launchof the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition (CYCC) and the AustralianYouth Climate Coalition (AYCC) respectively. But the fact that the

conference took place in Africa was an opportunity for youth fromthese developed nations to be able to share their organizing skills

with youth from the continent. Thanks to the second Conference ofYouth (CoY) organizedby young people prior to the start of COP12, the African Youth Initiative on Climate Change (AYICC) was

born. Young people capitalized on the energy of being able to con-

gregate from many parts of the continent and the world to start this

pan-African youth movement. AYICC is an excellent example of the

transnational flow of ideas between people from different parts of the

world and the possibilities such networking can generate.At the CoY held just before COP 13 in2007, the atmosphere was

ripe to launch similar youth movements across Asia. In two years'

time, youth climate movements from countries like Canada, the US

and Australia had matured to a point that their presence dominatedthe CoY. Only two youth representatives made it to Bali from Africaand none from Latin America. East and Southeast Asian youth werewell represented, but there were none from the Middle East or CentralAsia and only two young people from South Asia. The young peoplefrom Asia attending the conference began their collective campaignby holding small meetings. At the time the group was called the AsianYouth Caucus. Objectives for a pan-Asian youth climate movementwere outlined, identifying common resources, mobilizing youth fromdifferent parts of Asia on environmental issues, sharing informationand building capacity amongst the different regions on how to get

organized, and to create greater unity of youth in the world's largest

continent.The vision read.'

For the empowering of youth from across the Asian continent, to en-

courage greater mobilization to make change happen. In the realm ofenvironmental sustainability, with the help of cross-cultural capacitybuilding, skills and knowledge sharing, it [the Asian Youth Caucus]

aims to create a strong network amongst youth from the differentAsian nations.

164 ) KartiLcga Singlt

Without adequate representation from many Asian nations, how-ever, the task would be difficult. As the only Indian youth presentat the time in these meetings, I was aware that our presence in thesetransnational youth networks was extremely important. However, itwas hard to create a youth network across a continent as vast as Asia,which has so many language and cultural differences. The problemwas apparent during the meetings held on the sidelines of the COPwhere the need to communicate in English amongst members of thegroup might have meant some information was lost in translation.But while there are many differences amongst the different membernations of the Asian continent, one thingis common in Asian culture:the respect for and importance of elders and the subservient role ofyouth in society. All members present in these Asian Youth Caucusmeetings could readily understand the problems they would faceback home when demanding inclusion in decision-making matters ofgovernment-officials, members of civil society and industry on topicsof environmental change.

For some, these problems started at the COP itself. I walkedproudly up to my country-delegates to introduce myself as an Indianyouth delegate at the talks. "Youth? Shouldn't youth have the sameviews as their elders?" I was asked by a high-ranking representative.Recalling all the times I had pondered the question "how old will yoube in 2050?" of elder decision-makers, I had to refrain from askinghow they could possibly feel the same stake as the young? Had I notspent countless hours preparing policy proposals and submitting themdirectly to the UNFCCC? Had I not leamed about the procedures?Was I not competent to understand the political deadlock that hasplagued these negotiations for the last 17 years? I was not yet surewhat I would do about the "beach party" that was Bali, but I left theisland with an uneasy feeling about what might happen should Indianyouth remain outside this process. \4lhat worried me most was thatnot only are Indian youth a significant portion of the global youthpopulation (simply due to the sheer size of the Indian population),but also that they are represented by leaders who are many genera-tions older. This could potentially mean that Indian climate-policy isbeing dictated by politicians who have only short-term developmentagendas and who will not live to see the realities of their decisions inthe future. As such, the need for young people from India to rise tomeet this challenge is important now more than ever.

YoutL Jlnvironmental Nlovcrrrc,[s ( 165.

Yo,th L.oJ".slrip

Bob Stigler of the Berkana Institute writes about the rise of "enspir-ited leadership" in society (200a: l). Who are these people who arestepping forward to provide "new ways of leadership?" he asks. Inmost cases, he argues, they are not people in positions of power inany setting but are:

simply those who see what must be done and are willing to speak,

and then to act. Often, as they begin to step forward, their hearts arepounding with fear, but they believe the time has come to offer a newpossibility for the tuture (ibid.:l).

One of the most important characteristics of these "enspirited lead-ers," as described by Stigler, is that they travel in the company ofothers. Such leadership is on the rise in India as young people beginto tackle local problems they are witnessing. A group of concernedindividuals came together in March 2007 on the North Campus ofDelhi University to protest the felling of trees for one of the stadiabeing constructed for the 2010 Commonwealth Games to be hosted inNIew Delhi (Singh 2010). The same issue was brought up across the cityas Delhi began to lose her green-cover for "world class" infrastructureprojects in order to prepare the city for a global audience.

With no other way to document and highlight these events, theylaunched a blog to reveal the urban development challenges of thecity. This was the birth of the Delhi Greensblog, and since its launchit has grown in popularity not only in the city but in the nation andcertainly provides a window for the world to learn about the envi-ronmental issues plaguing the city. Such initiatives are on the riseacross the country in different cities. From a vast network of ruralyouth working to address local natural resource management issues

in the form of the Rajputana Society of Natural History (RSNH) toa network of eco-clubs across the state of Chhattisgarh called NatureBodies, these are the signs of thriving youth networks for change thatexist in the country. Later as co-founders we would learn that unifyingthem is a greater challenge in a country like India.

Several such youth initiatives and individuals came together inIndia to embody the spirit of the growing international youth move-ment on climate change - this would be the birth of the IYCN. In thespirit of "traveling in the company of others," IYCN was co-founded

166 I KartiLeya Singh

by Deepa Gupta, an Indian brought up in Australia, and myself, an

Indian who spent half his life in Gujarat and the other half in theUS and supported in part by Govind Singh, the founder of DelhiGreens. I had first met Govind while on a summer internship at theCentre for Science and Environment (CSE) in 2006. We stayed intouch and reconnected when I moved back to Delhi in August 2007.Excited by the thought of an effort such as Delhi Greens, thoughstill an inforrnal blog, but on a national scale, we began some discus-sions. It was not until I came into contact with youth movementsfrom across the world at the Bali climate talks that I could envisionwhat such an effort might look like in India. Upon returning, I wasintroduced to Deepa through a member of the AYCC. She waswondering if there had been any Indian youth representation in Bali,and I described to her the conversations I was having with Govindabout the launch of a network of Indian youth interested in climatechange, and together we created the network. IYCN, thus, is a resultof transnational flow of ideas spanning the globe but also an effortby Indians for those living in India. More importantly, it is the resultof a collective effort of people who could not have done this alonebut needed the company and support of their friends and families tobring this vision to life.

\[Ly YoutL?

But before delving further into how the IYCN was founded, one mustanswer the following questions: why should youth in India care?\Arhat is their role? To find answers to these questions let us explorethe outcomes of the first Earth Summit hosted by the UN in Rio de

Janeiro in 1992. Agenda 21, a framework for sustainable developmentoutlined at the Summit, gave environmentalists hope of a politicalawakening to address global environmental and developmentalchallenges. India was one of over 180 signatory nations to_the RioConvention. In this mammoth document there was something morefor youth. Hidden among the pages, in Chapter 25, one can find theinitial reasons that inspired the creation of IYCN (UN 1992). I willdiscuss how each clause is relevant for IYCN and the need for youthparticipation in environmental decision-making.

25.2.Itis imperative that youth from all parts of the world participateactively in all relevant levels of decision-making processes because

YoutL Environmental Movements < ,167

it affects their lives today and has implications for their futures' Inaddition to their intellectual contribution and their ability to mobilizesupport, they bring unique perspectives that need to be taken intoaccount (lbid.:275).

By the sound of this recommendation, the Indian government shouldhave youth engaged in all areas of decision-making as India is pres-

ently implementing policies that are resulting in rapid socio-economicand ecological transformation of the country. With all this develop-ment. it is certain that the decisions being made today are going to

impact our future. Chapter 25 continues:

' 2s.3.Numerous actions and recommendations within the internationalcommunity have been proposed to ensure that youth are provideda secure and healthy future, including an environment of quality,improved standards of living and access to education and employment.These issues need to be addressed in development planning (ibid').

\A4rile it was becoming abundantly clear at the time this documentwas drafted that there was a link between environment and humanhealth, the link specifically between climate change and humanhealth was made in 2008. In one of its reports, the World HealthOrganization (WHO) states that climate change puts at risk the "basicdeterminants of health," which in turn implies that the crisis is one

of the greatest risks to human health (WHO 2009). With nearly 200

million climate refugees expected by mid-century, rising numbersof deaths from unpredictable weather and spread of dangerousvector-borne diseases, we can be sure that the future that is beingleft for youth is one that is unlike that which previous generationsenjoyed (International Organization for Migration 2009). Here we

are presented with another reason for youth to be involved in the

decision-making process.\Mhy is it that after decades of negotiation, while knowing what

is at stake, we still seem to be in the same deadlock of inaction? Letus take a look at who is doing the negotiating: many negotiators are,

for lack of better words, on the "far side of 50." While their intellectand their experience are not to be challenged, many would argue

that negotiators have fallen out of touch with those whom they are

negotiating for. Who is to blame them? After all, the process is muchlike national politics: short-term political interests of those in office

are rarely linked to long-term impacts. But the proverbial question

t 6S I Kartileya Singh

remains for those who have an opinion and who are doing thr,negotiating: "how old willyou be in 2050?" Indeed this mantra hasbecome a rallying cry for the international youth movement on thcissue, and it is to be taken seriously - because those who are going tobe around to suffer the consequences will be young people, not theirelders (Singh 2009). The next section of Chapter 25 reads:

25.4.Each country should, in consultation with its youth communities,establish aprocess to promote dialogue between the youth communityand Government at all levels and to establish mechanisms that permityouth access to information and provide them with the opportunityto present their perspectives on government decisions, including theimplementation of Agenda 21 (UN 1992:275).

Youth in India need to realize that they can and should have theright to consult the authorities. This section of the Agenda 21 states thatthe process for consultation of youth must exist in order to promotedialogue. Today people in India have the opportunity to file inquiriesto increase transparency and reduce corruption thanks to the passingof the Right to Information (RTI) Act. Perhaps one should be filingan RTI to ask where the youth consultations are that India pledgedto take up? India assigns no regr.rlar youth representatives to high-level negotiations through organized means. One might wonder whatIndia's position mig'ht look like should youth get involved; after all,we would be negotiating our future. Similarly, the United ProgressiveAlliance (UPA) Government has formed a special "Prime Minister'sCouncil on Climate Change." This council allows for the inputs ofcivil society, scientists and industries. But I would argue that it needsto have space for youth input as a formal part of the mechanism.

Section 25.7 and Section 25.9 of Agenda 21 are very importantparts of the chapter because they mandate the involvement of youthin government delegations representing the country's interests atinternational fora. Also, the sections state that governments shouldincorporate "into relevant policies the recommendations of interna-tional, regional and local youth conferences and other forums thatoffer youth perspectives on social and economic development andresource managemend' (ibid.). Another reason for youth engagementis that this clause provides the right to approach the governmentwith youth policy proposals arising from the myriad youth summitsand workshops that are happening across the country at any giventime.

Yorrth Environrnental Moverrents < 16c)

Organizing anJ tLe Flglt {or Legfitimacy

The sections of Chapter 25 of The Agenda 2l cited here provide thejustification for needing to create an entity called the "Indian YouthClimate Network." Our strategy would be to engage various stakeholders including youth, business, civil society organizations, the ruralpopulation, and government. This vertically-integrated activism wouldbe the key to earn the right to speak up to a higher level of organiza-tion and decision-making. While the reasons to establish IYCN wereclear, it was quite challenging to establish the network and separatethe difference between an organization and a network, both of whichthe entity was trying to be. We asked ourselves whether we needed tocreate something entirely new or whether something similar existed.The South Asian Youth Environment Network (SAYEN), a youthenvironment branch of the United Nations Environment Program,had been operating in the country for several years. However thesecretariat was based out of the Centre for Environment Education(CEE), a highly-regarded organization working on environmentaleducation issues in the country for decades. Perhaps the problem wasthat SAYEN was a "for youth" network but not run "by youth," andas a result lacked the kind of energy and enthusiasm that we hoped tobring by launching a new independent network. Furthermore, at thetime we thought our network would not focus on as broad a range ofenvironmentalissues as SAYEN focuses on; instead we would focus onthose environmental issues thatwould fit comfortably in the climate-development nexus. We knew that in order to set the agenda for youngpeople on climate change in India, we needed to increase participationwhile clearly defining the scope of the discussion. We aimed to hostsuch a discussion at the first-ever, Delhi Youth Summit on Climate(DYSoC) in May 2008. This event would launch the movement inthe capital city and also signal a launch across the nation.

In order to organize amongst ourselves we used Google Groups, afree online tool provided by the Google Corporation, to share docu-ments and have discussions in the early stages of IYCN's develop-ment. This allowed us to include young people from across the countryin a conversation that was mostly happening in Delhi at the time. Italso allowed us to freely be a network - a loose coalition, which atthe time would be supported by different groups across the country,like Delhi Greens in Delhi. To get young people interested, we ral-lied support from young people at youth environmental conferences

170 ) K"rtiLns" Si"sh

being organi zedby existing non-govemmental organizations (NGOs).This helped seed the idea that gathered support from a broader spec-trum of young people. The Google Group was a blessing because itprovided a forum online where people with enthusiasm who wantedto take leadership and help shape the network could continue theconversation. It was a virtual networking platform for youth andyoung professionals who were interested in climate change. Slowlywe watched the number of participants in the Google Group climb.This did not, however, solve our problem of legitimacy. We knew thatif we were to get into conversations with potential established civilsociety organizations or corporate partners in order to hold eventsand enter into long-term partnerships, we would eventually requirea full-fledged legal entity.

The first step towards achieving legitimacy and at the same timeincreasing visibility was to create a blog. Being a free online publish-ing tool, a blog was the ideal platform to begin online discussionsabout our agenda. Blogs are also flexible enough to be customizedand have various forms of embedded media to engage visitors to thewebsite. Having been exposed to the popular North American youth'climate movement blog, 1tt Getting Hot in Here, we wanted to havesomething on a similar scale. Such a platform would be user-drivenand provide an organic, open voice for a growing youth movementin South Asia. We hoped that the movement would eventually growbeyond India to encompass all of South Asia, and to do so the brandwould have to be strong enough to gain popularity. Therefore, overlunch in Tibet Kitchen near the Shivaji Bus Terminus in ConnaughtPlace, New Delhi, the brand, Wat\ with the Climate?was launched.Its tag line, "Voices of a Subcontinent Grappling with Change," wouldensure that eventually it would be a platform that youth from acrossthe South Asian region could use. The blog was simple, but publish-ing it in the public sphere brought in queries from across the nation.A small organization based in rural Andhra Pradesh was the first tocontact us. They were working on adaptation for farmers strugglingto make ends meet due to an increasingly erratic monsoon. Theorganization wanted to bring attention to the suffering of the peopleof the region and seek funds from potential donors, and they wantedto do it by affiliating with the network.

The next several months would be spent trying to recr-uit mem-bers to write for the blog. This was and still is a major challenge.Recruitment is op,en to all, and some contributors are academics

YoutL Environmental Movements < l7l

while others are working for government or think-tanks. Some are

representatives of grassroots organizations needing a sounding boa^rd

to publish information about the work that they are doing in theenvironmental field. However most are students and members of therretwork responding to events on the ground. Finally, some contribu-tors are those that have an interest in South Asia but are living abroad.An analysis of the traffic the blog receives reveals that, while most ofthe readership is from India, the second highest is from the US. Inaddition, there is a high interest of readers from Canada, the UnitedK-ingdom (UK), Australia, many parts of the European Union (EU),

China, Russia, Brazil,large parts of southern and eastern Africa, andof course all other countries in South Asia.

The blog has provided a window to the world of the challenges,opportunities and news regarding climate change in India. \Arhile theblog was a good platform for the larger youth movement on climatechange, it provided very little information on what the IYCN was orhow it functioned. For this we wanted to create a separate website toadd to our legitimacy as an organization.

To expedite the process, we decided to draw on existing structuresof overseas youth climate coalitions. Deepa had been heavily involvedin the nearly one-year-old AYCC. Using their governance structureand the model of their website, we were able to quickly establish anonline presence. We set the official launch date for the network (and

the launch of the website) to coincide with the arrival of former USVice President Al Gore in Delhi, where the "Climate Projecl India"was launched. In the lead up to this event, I found myself workingon the ground to seed the idea of IYCN amongst civil society, youngpeople, and business, while Deepa played an equally crucial role ofnetworking with people online and giving the web support that wouldbe required in order to develop partnerships with other organizationsand companies.

With the website in place, on March 5, 2008, we were able tolaunch the IYCN. Thanks to our online presence, people from across

the country and the globe contacted us regarding partnerships andpotential projects. All of this was without the network being registeredas a legal entity. Nonetheless, it became easier to engage potential part-ners and members with a sense of legitimacy. With this confidence,we were well on our way to building partnerships with companies,civil society, and academic institutions that were required to host thefirst-ever youth summit on climate change in Delhi. Meetings with

172 ) KartiLeya Sinsh

organizations like LEAD India, the British Council, and the Cl,lllfinally felt productive because we felt that we had an organizatiorrwe were representing. These were the beginnings of our experimcrrlwith social entrepreneurship.

The DYSoC took place on May 28 and 29, and generated a krrof enthusiasm amongst the participants, partner organizations an(lmedia. Partner organizations were impressed with our ability to indcrpendently organize the event with no direct funding. A 3O-minutctelevision segment dedicated to the emerging movement and the eventbolstered our confidence while increasing the number of participantsat the event. The purpose of the summit was to get young peoplefamiliarized with urban planning policies in the capital region in thecontext of the climate-constrained world. We presented the youthrecommendations that came out of the two-day workshop-style sum-mit to the Delhi Government with the hope that they would take usseriously. Some of the suggestions included progressive taxation ofvehicles based on horsepower and fuel efficiency, use of informationtechnology for water resource management, expanding the Delhimulti-modal mass transit system, and improving the energy meter-ing system to use "time-of-day" metering that would charge differ-ent rates depending on peak and off-peak power production costs.In addition to these suggestions, the event provided a platform foryouth and young professionals to discuss projects that they hopedto initiate on their college and school campuses or in the city thatwould better the environment. This public brainstorming session wasinspiring for the members present. The success of the event pushedus to continue to build the movement. We knew that even if thegovernment did not take us seriously at the time, with the attentionwe were getting by organizing this ground-breaking event, we wouldrally more support, and one day the government would itself inviteyouth for consultations.

Or$anization or Networle?

One of the big ideas that emerged at the summit was the need tohighlight the solutions to climate change from across the countryand to build a solution-based movement. Two recent graduates fromthe Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies in the US,Caroline Howe and Alexis Ringwald, who were working on environ-mental issues at The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) at the

Yolrtl, Enriron,re.tul Mrrvr,nrcnts < 173

time, presented a seemingly impossible idea: organizing a "climatesolutions road tour," a journey across the country in Indian-madesolar-electric vehicles that would highlight the nation's innovationsand inspire thousands into action. This would also be the longestelectric-car journey in Asia and an opportunity to test-drive an Indianinnovation, a lithium-ion battery-powered electric car, produced byIndian manufacturer, REVA. The project was rooted in the idea that"solutions are real, and they exist today." Furthermore, by collectivelyenvisioning a world of solutions, and building a movement basedon solutions, we could get much further in solving the climate crisisthan we could simply through international climate negotiations.India would be a great laboratory to test this as it is a place that willnot only be greatly impacted by changing climate impacts, but it hasover I billion solutions to climate change (referring to the strengthof its human capital). Thus the tour sought to "create, communicateand celebrate" the solutions to climate change by conducting aseries of seminars and workshops that would set loose a networkof change-makers (IYCN's movement), by communicating existingsolutions as well as those being created by members of the network(in order to build capacity and show the world how India is takingaction to address climate change), and by using the arts in order toreach out to the broader public and make the movement appealing(India Climate Solutionsn.d.). The latter would be accomplished withthe help of public art projects and music, namely with the help ofan American band, "Solar Punch" whose equipment was poweredpurely through solar energy. Though American, they would masterseveral Bollywood music hits in time for the tour. With this kind ofenergy and a dynamic team made up of youth, young professionals,entrepreneurs, and artists, it was hoped that the message of solutionswould reach a wide audience.

By committing the fledgling network to being the platform fororganizing this tour, we took a big gamble. Should we succeed,the network would go down in history, for having conducted thisremarkable feat and its membership base could increase sharply as

we built the movement along the way: in city after city, new youngmembers would help inspire and it would help us create new centersof change-making activity. The risk was that we were still uncertainabout the governance and structure of the network and we did notknow how to deal with emerying "chapters" in other cities. The lackof clarity would confuse newly-inducted members of their role and

174 I KartiLeya Singh

duties in the network shortly after 'Joining." In addition, we wereunclear about how a network might be managed by groups such as

Delhi Greens which were separate legal entities (Delhi Greens wasregistered as a tmst in mid-2008) with independent agendas. A11 of thisuncertainty could be potentially detrimental to the overall growth ofthe network. Imagine the confusion of thousands of people enteringa network that was still trying to define its full-range levels on whichit should seek to drive systemic change. Regardless, our mission wasclear: "to unite the youth of India, towards a clean bright future"(Delhi Youth Declaration on Climate Change, May 28,2008) and itwas with this in mind that we kept the network open to growth andideation. It became an open laboratory, a place for passionate youthto know that they were a part of "something new, something bold,"(New Delhi, DYSoC) and that they could exercise their creativefreedoms and entrepreneurship skills.

The climate solutions road tour was one of those ideas; it requiredinstitutional backing to raise funds for its mission, \fhile on a fundrais-ing tour in Chennai, we realized not only how important it was to havea legal entity to provide sponsorship but also how difficult it would beto direct the movement from Delhi. A meeting with a businessmanand member of The Indus Entrepreneurs group (TIE) in Chennaichallenged my confidence in our social entrepreneurship venture.After much probing, he told me flatly: "Sitting here in Chennai,I will never give money to anything that has 'Delhi' in its name."Regionalism is not new in India, and in a country that has often seentoo much central government control, people from far-flung stateshave naturally developed an aversion to Delhi-centric initiatives. Itwas then that we knew that IYCN would have to be an independentorganization and a national network all at once. Being pan-Indian inname meant it was effective at gathering support across the country.But to be an effective platform for raising funds for national projects,it would also have to be registered as an independent organization.

To build the movement beyond Delhi's borders would be just as

challenging as trying to build a movement across Asia, for within thiscountry alone, there are several cultures and language barriers. ByAugust 2008, we had organized in partnership with a few organizationsfrom southern India, the first ever for youth, by youth, nationalsw-mit on climate change: the Indian Youth Summit on Climate Change(IYSoCC). This event helped seed the idea of IYCN amongst youthto a wider audience beyond Delhi. It was also a place to introduce the

YoutL Environmental Movements < L75,

concept of the climate solutions road tour, for it was the passion ofthese youth that would eventually create spin-off chapters of IYCN.Soon after, IYCN was registered as a separate entity, and with thischange came the constant challenge for us to distinguish between theroles of the network and the organization. The networkwas the loosecoalition of affiliated member groups and individuals who made upthe larger climate movement, and the organization was the unifyinglegal entity running coordinated campaigns and projects for all these

members to participate in. The organization was also legally liablefor its actions whereas the network was broader and, while inspiredby the organization, could act independently, driven by individualsand member groups.

In this early phase, we were all learners. Taking a lot of activistsand making them responsible managers and operators of an orga-nlzatior, was difficult. The greatest challenge was shifting roles frombeing an activist to being a manager of people, an unexpected rolethat needed to be filled. One of the biggest tasks was registering the

organization with the Indian government, a cumbersome process.

Along the way we realized that there would be many such barriersto pass before we were a functioning organization. At least half of ourtime was spent on creating the organization, which was extremelydraining. Administrative duties aside, we began to travel across thecountry to conduct climate-leadership trainings, modified from exist-ing workshops from Australia and the US. Not having to duplicatesome of these techniques and resources proved extremely valuablewhen working with limited capacity. Here is another example of thepower of transnational information exchange that can help bolsterinitiatives when we did not have capacity.

These trainings would provide a gateway for interested youngpeople on college campuses to learn about climate change and thenbe motivated by the energy of the workshop to take effective targetedaction towards a local environmental issue (perhaps on campus).Focused sessions on identifying the barriers and stakeholders associ-

ated with small problems such ns waste, transportation, water andenergy on campus would allow the students to develop action plans.At Sri Ramaswamy Memorial University in the southern city ofChennai, students decided that they would create an effective waste

segregation and management system on their campus. Eventuallythey would attempt to ban plastic bag use on campus altogether.The group of students organizing these events called themselves the

176 ) KortiLnso Si,r7h

"Eco-YOUth," emphasizing the "you" in "youth" to highlight therole of the individual in initiating change. Students of IndraprasthaUniversity in Delhi were more technical, insisting that a waste paperrecycling unit be set up (through use of in-house technology) to createa secondary industry that would employ some of the underemployedstaff on campus. At the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur,students wished to install a biogas plant to handle all the food wasteand provide clean cooking energy for the school canteen. PuneUniversity students decided that there was too much public throughtraffic crisscrossing its large campus, so they decided to push for anaggressive policy to limit vehicular traffic. Members of the studentgroup, Pragati, of Sri Ram College of Commerce provided inspirationby probing the use of government-sanctioned funds for sustainabledevelopment on college campuses. They would eventually have theirdemands for the installation of solar hot water heaters met and gofurther by launching a green publication, creating a public space forposting a "gleen-tip" daily (for environmental education) and askingfor a small lot of land on campus for the creation of an organic garden.Some of these plans would be successful; others would fizzle out overtime. At the very least, we saw a potential to create and leave behinda network of "eco-groups" on college campuses to be a part of thelarger youth climate network - the movement.

These networks that we were creating prior to the launch of theroad tour would help us solve the logistical challenge of conductingthe tour. They could organize events during the days that the roadtour was in their city and scout out local climate solutions to documentand highlight. In the organizing process, the coordinators of the roadtour in different cities would have to create their own local networkchapter comprising youth, young professionals, companies and civilsociety $oups. Some of these partnerships would be particular to acity, others would be national partnerships. One of the successes of"IYCN the organization" was partnerships it forged early on withcompanies like Infosys, a leading Information Technology (IT) giantthat is dedicated to the environmental cause and that saw the networkas a potential source of future employees who would be able to heipit fulfill its green mission. Since IYCN expanded so quickly thanksto web-tools, it seemed fitting that the young network would form a

partnership with an IT giant which would support notjust our creativ-ity but even our organizational growth. Such partnerships are excitingand perhaps reflect how social movements can be supported by the

YorLtl, Environmcntal MovcnrenLs < L77

digital age through new partnerships to solve problems as complexas climate change. This example also shows how important it wasfor IYCN to function not only as a loose network and movement,but also as an organization that could forge bilateral partnerships. Anetwork could not form bilateral partnerships as it would be hard forthe partnering organization or company to know who the "personin charge" is with whom the partnership is being forged. In addition, companies might ask, can a loose network give clear shape tothe well-defined deliverables and benefits that should come with apartnership? These questions can only be answered when dealingwith another organization.

Navigating through the mix of relationships between young people,other non-profit organizations, the government and now industry,required a hig'her level of professionalism from us. An advisor tothe organization suggested that the co-founders take on roles as

"Executive Directors" handling the various emerging "portfolios" ofIYCN (partnerships, fundraising, programs, memberships, etc.). Theseroles would help us delegate tasks amongst ourselves and hopefullyoperate more efficiently. IYCN however, was like an organism, con-stantly expanding and creating new challenges for us to learn from.As organizers of this movement, we made many mistakes and wereconstantly adapting to the challenges we were facing. From the verystart we were very much what noted American author and Directorof the Center for Organizational Learning, Peter Senge (1990), woulddescribe as a "learning organization," one that continues to evolvewith time in order to survive and in reaction to the external environ-ment. Although the term refers more directly to companies that mustadapt to changing market conditions, I believe it can be applied tosocial ventures as well.

We faced a tremendous challenge to create a steering committeethat spanned the country. The allure of having various geographicregions and both urban and rural voices included was that we couldclaim to be somewhat "representative" of Indian youth voices. Itwas inevitable that certain voices would feel left out, some due tocommunication barriers and others due to bottlenecks created in theprocess-heavy decision-making structure we were creating. It wasalmost as if we were trying to constrain the movement within a boxas it was trying to grow.

Any decisions that had to be made were through consensus andthus required some form of feedback from every individual on the

178 ) KartiLeya Si,,gh

steering committee. Sometimes the intemet connection would be wcaliin rural Rajasthan which limited the ability of a representative fronr a

member organization in the network to participate. Or a language bar.rier existed between northern Hindi speakers and those from the soutlrwho may have preferred to communicate in English. The problenrof choosing which language to communicate in reflects the scenarioof the Indian state. Eventually these communication problems ledto decisions being made with majority consensus with whoever wasparticipating and gradually resulted in fewer members of the steeringcommittee playing an active role. The lack of participation from thesteering committee as it existed then may have also been due to theambiguity of their roles as steering committee members. At the timethey were simply making collective decisions on an upcoming event(the IYSoCC) or having ad hoc discussions on the ur"u. o1 fo.r,for campaigns as a network. Eventually the steering committee wasredundant and repeated attempts by Deepa to resuscitate it after thefirst IYSoCC in August 2008 failed.

Six months after the launch, we realized the need to restructurethe decision-makingbody. This time, in order to deal with the explo-sion of tasks (everything from creating programs such as the CampusClimate Challenge, the Agents of Change, and the Climate Leadershipprograms to increasing membership and raising funds) we limitedthe number of steering committee members and assigned them with"portfolios" of areas to be covered. This included media, programs,fundraising, partnerships, and volunteers and membership.

Decision-making eventually rested in the hands of a few steeringcommittee members who would be responsible for steeringthe move-ment (by ensuring communication between its memberls) and alsomanage the organization more efficiently. But as the tasks requiredincreasing amounts of time and commitment from the steering com-mittee, we knew that things would be more efficient if everyone wasemployed full time (or at least compensated for personal expenses intravel, etc.). This turned our attention to find ways to

"rrrrrr" that the

organization would be financially sustainable in the long-run in orderto ensure that members could continue to benefit from it. Ensuringthe operational sustainability of the platform would eventually takeup a larger part of our time, draining the team as they morphed frombeing activists to managers of a fast-expanding network.

Critics claimed that IYCN was "elitist." This charge came as a resultof English being our operating language. The fact that the majority

Y,r.,tl, ]],rvir.rr,,,,.t,Iul Nl,,r,t rrr, rrls ( l ll)

of the active participants of the network werc bascrl in tttllrtt;ttr';rsand had access to the internet would imply that tlrc potcrrtirrl ol llrcnetwork to engage the Indian population (sok:[y thlorrglr ortlirtcengagement) was at most 6.5 per cent of thc tohl (ap1;r'oxirtrltt'ly 7 I

million people have direct access to internet in Lrclia).'l'ht'uitltttcof our main medium of communication meant that thc rnaj<llity olour participants were urban, middle class, and able to cornnrur.ricntt:in English. \Atrhile we recognized that the fact that we were mostlyreaching out to this demographic would always be a challenge for us

in terms of claiming youth "representation," we should have lbcusedour efforts more decidedly on the urban populace or created strategicpartnerships with those civil society organizations that worked in ruralareas instead of trying to do both ourselves.

The elitism charge also comes from adults who wish to write offthe movement on the grounds that these youth are "co-opted," try-ing to be a part of the system in order to change it - eventually theymay get jobs as negotiators or tum out like the already-establishedcivil society organizations. In doing so, critics believe that theseyouth might try to restrict access to such levels of decision-making tolarger masses. The only example I have of such a charge is throughthe Agents of Change (AoC) program that was modeled on a similarprogram established by Sustain US, the US youth network for sustain-able development. This program was meant to expose youth to theUN negotiations process by giving them the opportunity to attendclimate change conferences and learning to affect policy outcomes.Participation in the AoC program was limited to those between theages of 18 and 26 in order to keep in line with the UN definition of"youth."2 However we ignored that the definition of youth was widerin the Indian context with the upper limit being 35.

These misplaced rules forced us to exclude participants who wereotherwise capable and strong members within the network but whowe felt could not quite "represent" the youth at the internationalforum. By restricting this access, we were in essence playing the roleof gate keeper. We could not of course, stop anyone from raisinghis or her own fundsrl and attending and engaging with the "Indianyouth delegation" or the larger youth movement, but the questionof "representation" as youth would create barriers amongst peoplein the new movement.

In late 2008, IYCN was so focused on being part of the globalyouth movement, which was trying to attain legal status within the

180 ) KartiLega Singh

UNFCCC, that we were blind to these related challenges. So whilcsome government negotiators could write off the youth engaged in thenegotiations as "politically immature" and "romantic," others wouldstate that being out of touch with the larger masses or being co-optedinto the club is a reason to block their desire for a legal status at theUN for participation in the negotiations.

But it is because youth have traditionally been allowed to partici-pate in a very "tokenized" manner that an increasing number of youthare getting engaged in the official process. By "tokenized" I meanbeing paraded out to sing or make simple declarations calling onworld leaders to act on behalf of the future. These are easy ways fororganizations like the United Nations Children's Emergency Fund(UNICEF) and the UN bodies at large to feel like they are "engaging"youth but essentially it amounts to nothing more than youth becom-ing the "leitmotif' of such conferences. The opposite extreme that isaverse to co-option is youth as demonstrators on the streets. Thesedemonstrators can also be used by the establishment, particularly indomestic politics to show which ideologies have more support. Atthe international level, both are necessary but perhaps a mix, (againin support of vertically-integrated activism), and certainly one thatincludes youth as being able to make coherent interventions that guidepolicy decision-making. But in what one might call the current globalculture of decision-making an ageiarchy, which seems determined toremain in control, why should adult decision-makers want foot soldiersto be in the generals' room?

Sorrrething B.lJ

IYCN has always been a place of many "firsts." Thus, while planningfor the road tour, we were also racing against the clock to select andorganize the first-everlndian Youth Delegation to the United NationsClimate Change Conferdnce (COP 14) to be held in Poznan, Poland,in December 2008. This would, aside from ensuring our vision of avertically-integrated movement, plug Indian youth into the growinginternational youth movement and be able to offer a valuable perspec-tive of youth from the global South. Specifically this means educatingyouth from the global North about the complexities of climate change,energy and poverty - issues that plague many developing countries.Consequently it would mean that youth from the North would be ableto inform their politicians about this challenge and influence the global

YotrLL I]nvironmental Movcrncn[s ( 181,

climate negotiations. A group of l5 youth were selected initially withwide geographic representation from within India. However gettingfunding for them was challenging, and eventually only eight youthdelegates made it to Poznan. We hoped, however, that these eightwould be inspired enough to organize the next youth delegation, andthat delegation would then assist in organizing the one after it, andso on. This program, called the Agents of Change, was originallyadapted from Sustain US, the US youth network for sustainable devel-opment, the organization that gave me the chance to attend the COP13 conference in Bali, Indonesia the year before.

Exposure to the inter-national youth movement, we hoped, wouldhelp Indian youth see the larger picture and visualize how the move-ment in India is part of a global movement. They could also learnvaluable organizing and lobbying and technical skills to strengthen themovement back in India. The experience also provides perspective onthe difficulty of solving the climate challenge at the international leveland thereby validating the need for grassroots initiatives of change.The mission of the program, however, is to engage youth in policydecision-making as the Agenda 21 clearly outlines. For that we werelucky to have the support of a high-ranking Indian official, ShyamSaran, who was at the time the Prime Minister's Special Envoy forClimate Change. He was ve1'y open to having youth be a part of theofficial Indian government delegation. We were surprised that therequest was so easily met - only requiring that government officialsrecall the country's commitment to Agenda 21. Saran was initiallysurprised by our request but listened closely as we explained to himthe potential role of Indian youth at the COP. This would includenot only helping the delegation in its daily tasks, but also showing adifferent face of India at the negotiations, one that was representativeof the majority of its population. The negotiators eventually warmedup to the idea ofyoung faces oflndia at the international conferencethat could additionally help them communicate the issue of climatejustice and north-south equity to a wider audience.

The Indian youth delegation at COP l4 was successful in injectingthe global North-South equity message throughout the workings of theyouth movement present at the conference. It was also instmmental inmaking youth from the global North realize that more should be doneto ensure adequate representation of youth from the global South atupcoming COPs in order to help the movement spread equally acrossthe planet. Simply by being present as a network of youth from India,

182 ) Ka*iLesa Sinsh

the Indian youth delegation inspired individual representatives of thecountries from the global South to realize what they had to do whenthey returned home from the conference: launch a climate movementfor youth. The following year would see the launch of youth climatenetworks in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Bhutan,Fiji, and several nations from Africa and the Middle East.

Back in India, the idea of the road tour, while exciting, was provingincreasingly difficult to execute. Originally planned for October 2008,it was delayed due to lack of funds. As the road tour coordinatorsorganized meeting after meeting with potential funders and partners,trying to sell the vision of the tour, it became apparent that whilepeople were excited by its boldness, they were unable to commitmany resources. This was in part due to the unfolding internationaleconomic crisis and in part due to alternative motives that potentialpartners had. The latter refers to a problem that we faced navigatingthrough the highly political non-profit scene in Delhi. In a societya.lready crowded by civil society organizations, with limited funding,most of them tend to see youth as volunteers, more interested in get-ting certificates of participation, rather than having the drive to dosomething out of genuine interest. In addition, these organizationshave their own agendas and they would much rather have youthsupport their missions.

There would be no funding from existing civil society orgariza-tions unless we did projects in line with their missions. They wouldfail to envision what the possibilities were for youth by participatingin youth-run organizations. In addition, we ensured that we hadno particular bias in partnerships with any one organization, as th.e

community tends to be divided. As youth, we wished to steer clearof NGO politics; we expressed clearly to the civil society communitythat we would not be used by others and we would not part takein existing politics. After all, as youth working towards a commonfuture, we could not afford to be divided. So we carried on, drivenby a vision to create something new, something bold: a for youth,by youth vertically-integrated movement that would disrupt the tra-ditional civil society space.

TLe Future

Climate change is a contentious issue and there will always be divi-sions. As important as transnational flows of ideas and capacity were

\',,,,11, I;,,t,,,,,,,,,,,,1,,1 Nl,,',,,,,,,1 { l; i

tothecreationofthenetworkittlcl sttlttCol itsPro;r'tls. llrIt tr' t' ,t1""

sometimes used to target it. Thrtrt'wt't-r'it li'rv or t:tsiolr:; rvlt,'1,' ttt,lt

viduals targeted the network as having tr "lir|r'iprr irs,.rrrl;r" ()r lr|ilI,influenced by "foreigners." Those lcatlirre' lltt' t lt:rrq. lr':ttctl llr:rl

developed-country interests were tryir-rg to rr|gC lrr<li:r lo lirl<t'irt lion

on climate change while shirking their own histor.iCll |r.sPorrsilrilitit's

to reduce emissions. While far from the trutl.r, il wits rtrt irllt'tt'stirtqexperience for those of us in the network that lrarl rrlliliiltiorrs with

forei.gn countries.Despite being a passport carrying Indian citizen, I wits scltrtinizecl.

Self-proclaimed "sons of the soil," questioned whethcr ol Itttt I wars

truly "Indian," because of my mostly, American educa.tion. No one

would have thought that perhaps I had retained my Indian citizenship.

Why should citizenship even matter? For a politically-sensitive issue

such as climate change, it was the only way to attack a movementthat threatened to blur the traditional lines of north-south equity and

replace itwith the challenge of intergenerational equity, which forces

all sides to be proactive on taking action on climate change. Mentorsof IYCN, respected environmentalists, urged us to keep working and

not be discouraged but to also find ways to stop such divisive tactics.

Over time of course the only solution would be to ensure that leader-

ship would come from within India. We continued with our work,knowing that we were building a movement based on solutions, notsimply on the negative impacts of climate change. The solutions exist,

and they are here today. Young India is full of solutions, and couldperhaps show the world an alternate path to "development." Fromyouth participation in rural adaptation efforts in Rajasthan throug'h

the Rajputana Society of Natural History (RSNH) to youth efforts to

push for campus sustainability through technology interventions at

the Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT), the solutions exist.'With that message in mind, the Climate Solutions Road Tour

launched onJanuary 2,2009 from Chennai and travelled over 3,500

kms in 40 days to Delhi in solar-electric vehicles to "create, com-

municate, and celebrate" the solutions to climate change existing inIndia. During the tour we conducted workshops and interactive ses-

sions on climate change with students from over 200 colleges and 50

schools across the nation with approximately 10,000 students directlyimpacted (throug'h education and awareness of climate impacts and

solutions). With a well-managed media strategy, we ensured thatour message calling for the creation of a solutions-based movement

184 ) Ka,tiLeya Sinsih

reached out to millions across the country and the world. With this,we knew that the movement was launched and no matter what hap-pened to the organization, it would carry on.

IYCN is an idea of what vertically-integrated activism can looklike. The fact that it attempts to work at all levels and excite youngpeople on a topic which is so timely makes it appropriate to inspirea larger movement. But like any social movement, it will probablyundergo several ups and downs. The challenges remain: can IYCNmanage its role between an organization and a movement? Can itavoid traditional NGO politics or will it have to play the game? Mostimportantly, can it be sustained? For now it continues to be a platformwhere individuals can come together, engage in climate-developmentissues and collaborate to create their or,nm projects.

Today it includes members in 18 states, includingJammu andKashmir, and has a reach of several thousand individuals. It is alsotrying to build a bridge between urban, internet-using India and ruralIndia through its newly launched "rural climate fellows" program. Thisflagship program has trained five rural women on climate mitigationand adaptation in order for them to conduct awareness and trainingworkshops in 30 villages in Chhatarpur districtof MadhyaPradesh. InApril 2008, the Coimbatore Green Wings, a member group of IYCN,leveraged the power of the network to connect local self-help groupswith a solar energy start up to create a model for college students toadopt villages and actively partake in sustainable development of thecountry. News of this endeavor was well received by government,business, and established civil society organizations which recognizedthat youth were serious and thus should have the right to speak up.Engaging the vast majority of youth who live in rural areas will be thekey to achieving consensus on how to take action on climate changewithin the country.

Along the lines of vertical integration, IYCN also continues toengage youth business and college campuses. The Great Power Racewas a competition organized in 2010 between college campusesin India, China and the US to see who could implement the mostsustainable practices in their academic institution. The winner wasthe Indian Institute of Technology Delhi but over 400 other collegecampuses in India registered and implemented a range of solutionsftom waste management practices, to increasing tree cover and takingwater and energ'y conservation measures. Similarly, the Eco-Auditprogram that IYCN has initiated seeks to train young people in how

YoutL Environmental Movements ( 185

to conduct water, waste and energy audits for companies in order tobuild a bridge between youth and companies and push for a greenjobs-based growth strategy. All of this is earning the right for youthto speak up.

The success of IYCN and the ideas it embodies has allowed it tomove beyond its own borders in South Asia by supporting and col-laboratingwith regional networks such as the Pakistan Youth ClimateNetwork (PYCN), the Bangladesh Youth Climate Network (BYCN),the Maldives Youth Climate Network (MYCN), the BhutaneseYouth for Climate Action (BYCA), the Nepal Youth for ClimateAction (NYCA) and the Sri Lankan Youth Climate Action Network(SLYCAN). \Arhere the transnational flow of ideas was once happeningbetween nations of the global North and South, we are now wihressinga South-South exchange ofideas and capacity sharing. There havebeen two regional youth summits organized in South Asia by these

youth-run organizations in the last two years.

These connections amongst youth networks are going to proveincreasingly vital as the nations of South Asia, often at political odds,find themselves bound closer together by the challenges posed by achanging climate. And while youth may not have much say in thedomestic decision-making as yet, they may find ways to strengthentheir arguments for being involved by forging ties across nationalboundaries. In COP 15, youth formally became a UNFCCC-recognized constituency. Their new status, as "YOUNGOs" (youth-

run NGOs) is a significant step forward for the international youthenvironmental movement and provides the support youth need inorder to become part of the decision-making process at a nationallevel (Keenan 2010). They must however fight for that right anddemonstrate their capabilities. For India, that time may not be toofar off: the Indian Planning Commission has finally decided to holdnational consultations for its upcoming 12th five-year planning report.By recognizing youth as a constituency, it has approached IYCN andseveral other youth-run organizations to organize the consultation onseveral key policy issues including among other things, environment,democratization of information, creation of strategies for inclusivegrowth and the making of decentralized government work. This is astep towards creating the larger systemic change that IYCN hopes itsbrand of vertically-integrated activism can inspire. This is perhaps a

sign that the movement has entered a new phase. For similar groups in

186 I KaniLeya Sinsh

other countries, until such a day arrives, youth environmental move-ments will have to continue to evolve with changing circumstances togain the space they deserve for safeguarding their future.

{Vr

Notes

1. There seems to be some confusion as to how many people in India actuallyhave access to versus use the internet. The CIA World Fact Book placesthe number at 61 million in 2009 while the Market Statistics website,Plugged In states that the range is somewhere between 52 and 71 million.Furthermore, Pluged lrf s analysis reveals that 37 per cent of internet access

in India happens from cyber cafes. See http://www.pluggd.in,/internet-usage-in-india-market-statistics-297 / . As accessed on March 4, 20L4.For the UN's definition of "youth" as between the ages of 15 and 24,see http ://www.un.orglesa/socdev/documents/youth/fact-sheets/youth-definition.pdf. As accessed on March 4,2074. However, for the purposesof IYCN's AoC program, adapted from that of Sustain US, we stretchedthe age limit up to 26.The AoC program wds a structured youth-organized delegation to the UNclimate negotiations. The aim was to select those youth who would beable to advance not only the goals ofthe team but also ofthe global youthclimate movement; these individuals had to be dynamic, accomplishedand representative of youth environmental-action in India. Being selecteddid not however guarantee funding in order for the delegation memberto be able to attend the conference. The responsibility to source funds topay for the travel was a collective as well as individual effort of the entireIndiar Youth Delegation team. Funding was by far the biggest barrier toparticipation at the conference aside from accreditation.

2.

3.

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December I 4. http : / / itsgettinghotinhere.org/?s:breaking+the+fight+for+350. As accessed on March 11,2014.

India Climate Solutions. n.d. "Climate Solutions Road Tour." http://indiaclimate solutions.orglclimate-solutions-road-tour. As accessed onMarch 11,2014.

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the Effects of Climate Chang.a on. Humun Mi1ya.ti.on. an.d l)ispktutrnent.http://www.careclimatechange.oru. As erccesscd ort Mzrrch 1, 201'1.

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Connecting Sdence, Policl and People. Geneva: World Health Organisation.http ://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications,/2009 / 97 892 4 I 5t)titt80-eng.pdf?ua:1. As accessed on March 1ll, 2014.

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DereloNtment. UN l)oc A./Conl.7it1/2(i, Agenda Itcm 21, 4(itr' Session,(]eneral Assembly Official Records. http://sustainabledeveloprnent.un.org/content/docrrments/Agenda2 1.pdi. As accesscd on March 12

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