• 1 Varshini Prakash, Guido Girgenti, Winning the Green New Deal: Why we must, how we can, New York: Si (...)

“Our generation just helped flip the House with a record turnout. We will no longer tolerate empty promises and words without action from the Democratic Establishment. If Pelosi and the leadership don’t step up, they need to step aside.”1
Varshini Prakash, co-founder of the Sunrise Movement, 13 November 2018 during a sit-in in the office of House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi

• 2 Alec Tyson et al, “What the data says about Americans’ views of climate change,” Pew Research, 18 A (...)

2Given the recurring failure of the federal government to pass a climate law, low expectations of the 117th Congress’ success in 2022 were widespread, especially with regard to the Senate. Furthermore, other issues like the pandemic, the economic situation, then the war in Ukraine, took precedence over the question of climate policy. The United States, compared to most OECD nations, is an outlier in its relative lack of support for climate measures. Polls show that global warming and climate change have never yet been the top priority for Americans as a whole.2

• 3 Jennifer Marlon et al, “Younger Americans are growing more worried about global warming,” Yale Prog (...)

3The extreme anti-environmental agenda of the Trump administration, of Republicans in power, and most recently of the Supreme Court, alarmed many Americans, and propelled scores of young people into the climate movement. Not only was there a crisis of global warming, but also one of representation and of democracy itself. Many youths were galvanized to act against the forces that were threatening their future and that of their country.3 While much pro-climate mitigation activity has taken place over the last two decades at the subfederal levels of American government, financial aid and harmonization of policy at the federal level is required to make greater progress. Consequently, the focus at hand is on the nationwide associative action and on the federal level of government.

• 4 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15. Jonathan Watts, “12 years to l (...)
• 5 “The evidence is clear: the time for action is now. We can halve emissions by 2030,” IPCC, 4 Apr 20 (...)

5Extreme weather events are becoming increasingly frequent and devastating. Since 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an international body of scientists from all over the world, has been issuing regular warnings of increasingly catastrophic consequences if emissions are not drastically reduced. The October 2018 IPCC Special Report published the starkest warning to date, namely that the international community had twelve years to radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions to avoid catastrophic events.4 Ideally, warming must be held to a maximum of 1.5°C to avoid the worst effects of global warming, and the IPCC estimated that that goal would quickly be out of reach without immediate radical reductions.5 This widely publicized report sent a shock throughout the world.

• 6 Jeffrey M. Jones, “Extreme Weather Has Affected One in Three Americans,” Gallup, 6 Apr 2022, https: (...)
• 7 Adam Smith, “2022 Billion-dollar weather and Climate disasters in historical context,” 10 Jan 2023, (...)
• 8 National Centers for Environmental Information, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “B (...)

6In addition, a US Climate Report, which had been commissioned under President Obama, was published in November 2018 and corroborated the IPCC’s findings. The devastating consequences of climate change have become increasingly apparent, affecting more and more American families.6 The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has been tracking extreme weather events since 1980 and releasing yearly reports of events that exceed one billion dollars in damage. Climate.gov, a blog sponsored by NOAA, published an article in 2022 that put the rising trend of billion-dollar climate events into historical perspective. The 1980-2022 annual average was 7.9 events while the average for the most recent 5 years (2018-2022) was 17.8 events costing at least one billion dollars each.7 In 2023, there were 28 such events, which brought the average to 20.4 events per year for 2019 to 2023.8 The authors acknowledge that these numbers very likely underestimate the true financial cost of these mega-events. Moreover, they do not take into account environmental damage and of course, there are countless smaller scale events happening across the United States. What is clear is that the number of extreme weather events has increased significantly in the last several years, as the graph below illustrates.

• 9 Alec Tyson et al, “What the data says about Americans’ views of climate change,” Pew Research, 18 A (...)
• 10 Bryan Barnett et al, “A Survey of Gen Z and Millennials’ Behavior & Values,” The United States Conf (...)
• 11 Judy Wu et al, “Climate anxiety in young people: a call to action,” The Lancet, Oct 2020.
• 12 Kate Yoder, “Study: More than half of young people think ‘humanity is doomed’,” Grist, 14 Sep 2021.
• 13 Elizabeth Marks et al, “Young People's Voices on Climate Anxiety, Government Betrayal and Moral Inj (...)

7Furthermore, NOAA’s analysis does not take into account the less tangible impact on mental health. While opinion surveys show that global warming and climate change have never yet been the top priority for Americans as a whole,9 Americans aged 18 to 29 are much more sensitive to climate change than older generations. In 2020, 80% of this cohort said that global warming is a major threat to human life on earth as we know it.10 In addition, studies have shown that young people are at a crucial moment of development, both physical and psychological, which makes them particularly vulnerable to stress, depression, and anxiety.11 Eco-anxiety, the term that designates a condition of extreme worry about the future based on reported trends of climate change and lived experiences with extreme weather events, affects more and more youths.12 A 2020 study of 10,000 young people (aged 16-25 years) in ten countries found that 59% were extremely worried, 84% at least moderately worried, and over 50% felt sad, anxious, powerless, helpless and guilty. The study concluded: “Correlations indicated that climate anxiety and distress were significantly related to perceived inadequate government response and associated feelings of betrayal.”13 

• 14 Hannah Pitt, Kate Larsen, Maggie Young, “The Undoing of US Climate Policy: The Emissions Impact of (...)

8Consequently, as climate conditions worsen every year, American youths’ fears and frustrations have grown due to officials’ lack of action to combat the climate crisis. There was some progress made on climate policy towards the end of the Obama administration, like the Clean Power Plan, which was projected to reduce the electric sector’s emissions by 32% by 2030, compared to the 2005 baseline. When Donald Trump was elected, however, he reversed course on the plan, as it was an executive order which can easily be overturned contrary to a law voted by Congress. Trump also announced that the United States would withdraw from the Paris Accord, which was a major setback to international efforts to reduce emissions globally. In fact, the Trump administration was the most anti-environmental federal government since the advent of environmental issues on the federal agenda in the late nineteenth century (creation of national parks, forest reserves and wildlife sanctuaries). The research group Rhodium found “that Trump’s major climate policy rollbacks had the potential to add 1.8 gigatons of CO₂-equivalent to the atmosphere by 2035. This cumulative impact is equivalent to nearly one-third of all US emissions in 2019.”14 The dissonance between the scientific warnings and the actions of the Trump administration greatly increased the anxiety of scores of pro-action youths and a plethora of climate action youth groups sprang up in 2017-19. What strategies did youths employ to encourage elected officials to take serious climate action?

• 15 Erica Chenoweth, Maria J. Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works: the Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Co (...)

9Thousands of adolescents and young adults joined climate action groups, but the track record of climate advocacy in the last four decades portended an uphill battle against the powerful misinformation campaigns of the fossil fuel industry. Would youth climate activists defy the odds and reach the 3.5% threshold to succeed as a mass movement? The well-known study of Erica Chenoweth, Harvard political scientist and Maria J. Stephan, a researcher at the International Center of Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC) entitled, Why Civil Resistance Works: the Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict found that 53% of nonviolent movements succeeded in contrast to 26% of violent campaigns. The authors also found that, in order to effect serious political change, a threshold of about 3.5% of the population needed to be actively involved in the protests.15 One of the explanations for the success of such mass movements is the fact that many more people who do not protest support the protesters. Also, youths who protest nonviolently for a cleaner environment occupy a higher moral ground than older people who have not taken action to ensure a livable environment for future generations, not to mention the polluting industries. 3.5 percent is a sizable proportion of people and one that is not easy to achieve. In the United States, that would signify that 11.7 million people would have to be actively protesting for climate action over a period of time, which has not been the case. Nevertheless, youths deployed creative means to change mentalities and to bring people to see the situation as an existential crisis.

• 16 Melanie Meunier, “Youth Climate Activism in the United States,” Revue électronique des études sur l (...)
• 17 Karen O'Brien, Elin Selboe, Bronwyn M. Hayward. “Exploring Youth Activism on climate change: dutifu (...)

10In order to better understand the breadth as well as the depth of the youth climate movement, which played an important part in putting climate policy on the federal agenda, it is helpful to divide the actions into categories. In an article published in 2021,16 I outlined three types of contentious collective action, or dissent, that youths were employing to fight for climate action: disruptive, dutiful and dangerous (categories developed by Karen O’Brien et al).17 “Disruptive” actions include marches, protests, sit-ins; etc. “Dutiful” implies that activists accept the rules of the system and try to work within it by helping elect climate-friendly representatives at all levels of government. The third category, “dangerous,” refers to initiatives that challenge deep-seated beliefs and power structures, which are perceived as a threat by powerful stakeholders. Continuing with these categories of action, this section will analyze how the youths raised awareness and succeeded in elevating the climate crisis in the political arena, and in society at large, from the 2016 elections to the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022.

• 18 Kate Yoder, op.cit.
• 19 “Young Climate Activists Testify on Capitol Hill,” CBS News, 18 Sep 2019.
• 20 Paul Solman, “Ok Boomer: What's behind millennials' growing resentment for their predecessors?” PBS (...)

11Youths often feel that their concerns are not taken seriously by elected officials. Of the 81% of respondents to the 2020 poll cited previously (Marks) who expressed their fears and anxiety, almost half of them said that their concerns were ignored or dismissed.18 Fifteen-year-old founder of Zero Hour (in 2017) Jamie Margolin explained, “They’ll just pat us on the head and say, ‘maybe one day you should run for office and you can take action on climate change.’ By the time I grow up, it’ll be too late!”19 Additionally, today’s young adults and teens have grown up with 9/11 and the ensuing “war on terror”, gun violence, social unrest, the 2008 financial crisis, soaring educational costs, an opioid epidemic, the pandemic, and extreme weather events. The heightened social insecurity, economic uncertainty, and environmental threat have combined to create a rather different worldview from that of preceding generations. Compared to the baby boomer generation (defined as born between 1946 and 1964), which grew up when the American economy was booming, many of today’s youths harbor a sense of unfairness, bordering on anger, when it comes to the climate crisis. There is a feeling that baby boomers’ lifestyles and the policies they implement prioritize their own wellbeing over that of younger generations.20

• 21 Norm Ornstein, “Yes, Polarization Is Asymmetric—and Conservatives Are Worse,” Atlantic, 19 Jun 2014
• 22 Varshini Prakash, Guido Girgenti, op. cit., x.
• 23 Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement, 4^th Edition, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2022, 10.

12Furthermore, the uncompromising positions of many federal-level elected officials have led to legislative gridlock, which has fueled a growing disenchantment with political parties. However, it is the Republican Party that has moved to extreme positions and embraced climate denial over the last few decades.21 Thus, climate activist youths look to the Democratic Party as their best hope for climate policy and have largely concentrated their efforts on reinforcing its ranks with progressive individuals and on changing its priorities.22 Before the Inflation Reduction Act, the Democratic Party had failed to pass a comprehensive climate policy. As political scientist Sidney Tarrow defines it: “Collective action becomes contentious when it is used by people who lack regular access to representative institutions, who act in the name of new or unaccepted claims, and who behave in ways that fundamentally challenge others and authorities.”23 Young climate activists, who see inaction in terms of an existential crisis, and many of who were too young to vote, directed their efforts to challenging Democrats to enact climate policy.

• 24 Henry Jenkins, By Any Media Necessary: the New Youth Activism, New York: NYU Press, 2016, 3.
• 25 Jerusha Conner et al, “The Role of Electoral Engagement in Youth Social Movements (Study I of Prote (...)
• 26 Mary Alice Haddad, Effective Advocacy, Lessons from East Asia’s Environmentalists, Cambridge, MA: M (...)

13Person-to-person communication based on trust is the basis for successful movements, and the social media generation is very adept at creating networks. Young climate activists recognized that, in recent decades, existing and climate organizations had had limited success in lobbying Congress for climate policy. Environmental organizations like 350.org, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and many more, organized events and demonstrations over the years – to little avail. Young activists thus preferred to create their own peer-based groups, often organizing through social media. As Professor of Communication, Journalism, Cinematic Arts and Education Henry Jenkins underlined in By Any Media Necessary: the New Youth Activism, a major factor in the mobilization of youths is the attraction of the peer-to-peer encouragement, which fosters a strong sense of community and support networks.24 In the words of a Youth Climate Action Network activist, “It's easy to want to show up and make change when you know you're doing it with your friends.”25 Professor Mary Alice Haddad in her study of environmental advocacy also found that, regardless of the country, of economic wealth, of political regime, the single most important element to the success of a movement is the network activists create.26

• 27 Sidney Tarrow, op.cit., 10.

14Youths who feel disempowered and who are too young to vote can take action by putting pressure on decision makers from outside the political system, namely by marching in the streets and disrupting the normal functioning of society. The principal advantage that teens and young adults have compared to older, often wealthier, voters is their energy and their willingness to put in many hours of street presence and social media campaigns. Moreover, these types of disruptive actions are the most accessible to poorly financed, loosely organized groups.27 The outrage and despair generated by the Trump victory, coupled with eco-anxiety, led to an explosion in the number of youth-based groups for climate action after the 2016 election.

• 28 Nick Engelfried, Movement Makers: How Young Activists Upended the Politics of Climate Change, Secon (...)

15Progressive-minded youth groups like the Sunrise Movement (2017), Zero Hour (2017), Justice Democrats (2017), the Youth Climate Strike (2018), Youth Climate Action Team (2019), Earth Uprising (2019), and many more, sprang up across the United States in the years following Donald Trump’s inauguration. The Sunrise Movement, in particular, stands out because it settled on a multi-pronged approach to its activism. The founders of the movement spent months studying earlier movements, like the 1960s’ Civil Rights movement, the environmental movement of the early 1970s and the Occupy Wall Street movement of 2011 to understand why some efforts succeeded while others failed. Nick Engelfried, former youth activist turned freelance journalist, studied the current youth climate movement and remarked: “What I didn’t foresee was that Sunrise would bring a political acumen largely missing from earlier waves of climate activism… By working both to elect political candidates and get thousands of people in the streets, Sunrise distinguished itself from environmental groups who tend to choose one of these activities or the other.”28

• 29 Ivy Main, “Is there a partisan divide on climate? Not among young people,” Virginia Mercury, 13 Jun (...)
• 30 Alec Tyson, Brian Kennedy, Cary Funk, “Gen Z, Millennials Stand Out for Climate Change Activism, So (...)
• 31 “Young Climate Activists Testify on Capitol Hill,” CBS News, 18 Sep 2019.
• 32 David Geselbracht, “For some evangelical Christians, climate action is a God-given mandate,” Grist, (...)
• 33 “Young Evangelicals for Climate Action, 2022 American Climate,” ecoAmerica, 3 Mar 2022.
• 34 “Young evangelicals are pushing for climate action,” Holland Sentinel, 19 Jun 2023.

16On the conservative side of the political spectrum, increasing numbers of young conservatives have broken with the Republican Party line on the issue of climate change, for they see it as a real threat to their future and as a nonpartisan matter.29 Compared to their parents and grandparents, young conservatives worry much more about climate change.30 They have created their own climate action groups, such as the American Conservation Coalition and Young Evangelicals for Climate Action. Both groups are putting pressure on elected officials to act. Benji Backer, founder of the American Conservation Coalition testified alongside other youth leaders before the Senate and urged Congress to take serious action on climate change.31 Evangelical Christians are considered one of the staunchest conservative groups: about 81% of the 84 million Americans who self-identify as evangelical Christians voted for Donald Trump in 2016.32 Young Evangelicals for Climate Action, nevertheless, are forthright in their defense of climate mitigation policy. Through their climate leadership program, 81 youths were trained 2014-22.33 The Young Evangelicals point to scripture as they press for legislation: “We are stewards of the earth….it’s about restoration.”34 The conservative groups favor market-based solutions rather than government intervention, but with their embrace of mainstream science, conservation, and environmental protections, these young Americans do not conform to the conservative stereotype, and are well-placed to influence their entourage of Republican elders.

• 35 Charles Tilly, Sidney Tarrow, Contentious Politics, New York: Oxford University Press, 2007, 95.
• 36 The 350.org Team, “7.6 million people demand action after week of climate strikes,” 350.org, 28 Sep (...)
• 37 Sarah Kaplan, “Teen girls are leading the climate strikes and helping change the face of environmen (...)

18Political sociologists Tilly and Tarrow state that the coordination of collective action at a higher level, called an upward scale shift, is one of the most important factors in the success of a movement.35 An impressive example of such an upward scale shift is the 2019 U.S. Youth Climate Strike in 2019, which was organized by the U.S. Youth Climate Strike Coalition. The culmination of a year of school strikes took place in New York City during the United Nations Climate Action Summit in September 2019. Organizers of the September 20, 2019 strike assert that 250,000 marched in New York and it is estimated that 6 to 7.6 million people demonstrated worldwide.36 The numbers were unprecedented for youth-led demonstrations. Furthermore, according to sociologist Dana Fisher who conducted a survey of participants, half were under twenty-three years of age, and one quarter were under eighteen years of age.37 This example is a testament to the importance of the climate crisis for youths and to the success of youth leaders in inspiring their peers to join them in the marches.

• 38 Mark K. Matthews, “Activists get cuffed for climate, but will it help?” E&E Climatewire, 18 Dec 201 (...)

19Varshini Prakash, one of the founders of the Sunrise movement, explained, “The reason we do protests and demonstrations is because it is one of the most effective ways of bringing the [climate] crisis… into the public consciousness.” She added that, if the objective is to generate sustained support for a Green New Deal – the Sunrise Movement's plan to combat global warming through a climate-friendly jobs program — it will take more than protests and civil disobedience.38 Short of that 3.5% threshold of active and sustained pressure, other strategies complementing street action are required. The movement needs key elected officials willing to fight for concrete measures in legislatures. The Sunrise movement and Justice Democrats, a youth-led group focused on helping elect progressive candidates, are two groups that seek and support electoral candidates willing to fight for climate legislation in Congress.

• 39 Carrie Johnson, “Clinton Scandals: A Guide From Whitewater To The Clinton Foundation,” NPR, 21 Jun (...)

21During the 2016 primaries, surveys found that young voters were not excited about the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. Well known as the wife of former president Bill Clinton, for her 2008 presidential candidacy against Barack Obama, and as Obama’s Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013 – not to mention her association with a series of scandals39 – she represented the Democratic establishment, which had failed to take strong action to combat climate change.

• 40 History shows that it is extremely difficult to succeed as a third-party candidate in the US system (...)

22On the contrary, young voters were very enthusiastic about the relatively unknown, outspoken outsider who emerged as her main opponent, Bernie Sanders, a 74-year-old Independent senator from Vermont. Sanders, a self-labeled democratic socialist, had registered as an Independent throughout his tenures in the House of Representatives (1991-2007) and the Senate (since 2007). However, he chose to run for president as a Democrat, given the constraints of the two-party system and recent history.40 Sanders generally voted with the Democrats but criticized them repeatedly for not doing enough for the middle class and low-income segments of society.

• 41 Sam Frizell, “Bernie Sanders Does Not Concede Democratic Nomination to Hillary Clinton,” Time, 16 J (...)

23Young Sanders supporters perceived the senator as authentic, untarnished by scandal, and a champion of social and environmental justice – issues that resonated strongly with them.41 Youths came out in droves to volunteer for Sanders’ campaign and vote for him. Alexandra Rojas, whose parents had emigrated from Peru and Colombia, was so inspired by Sanders’ message that she quit her three jobs in California and moved to Vermont in January 2016 to work full-time for his campaign. She recounted,

• 43 Aaron Blake, “More young people voted for Bernie Sanders than Trump and Clinton combined – by a lot (...)

24Sanders’ refusal to kowtow to the Establishment and uncompromising defense of his vision of a more just society greatly appealed to these young people. In fact, amongst young adults who voted in the 2016 primaries – whether Democrats or Republicans – their candidate of choice was Sanders by a large margin.43 The following chart of the youth vote, published in The Washington Post at the end of the primary season, shows the depth of enthusiasm for Bernie Sanders’ social-democratic discourse during the 2016 presidential election campaign. In the twenty-one states which could provide the data based on exit polls from voting stations, less than 1.6 million voters aged 18-29 voted for Clinton or Trump, while more than 2.0 million voted for Sanders.

• 44 “Bernie Sanders: ‘Political revolution must continue’" CBS News, 16 Jun 2016.

25More attention has been paid to young voters since the 2016 election and the Sanders-youth phenomenon. In June, at the end of the primary season, Sanders explained what his campaign was about: “Election days come and go. But political and social revolutions that attempt to transform our society never end. They continue every day, every week and every month in the fight to create a nation of social and economic justice. Real change…occurs from the bottom on up when tens of millions of people say ‘enough is enough,’ and they become engaged in the fight for justice.”44 Sanders’ words inspired youths, but their enthusiasm for Sanders also underscored their dislike of the two main parties. One young activist reflected on the Sanders’ effect and what youths could learn from it:

• 46 Bernie Sanders, op cit.

26Indeed, since the Reagan years, the income gap between the richest and the poorest has greatly widened, and it has become increasingly more difficult for modest wage earners to make ends meet. Prospects for the majority of young Americans appear substantially less favorable than for their parents, which has motivated many to become activists. The surprising success of Bernie Sanders’ grassroots campaign “showed what is possible when working people stand up and fight.”46 Youth activists sensed an opportunity to unite people around a movement similar to Bernie’s that would focus on electing likeminded liberals to Congress to pass a progressive agenda. Rojas explained how she and friends formed Justice Democrats:

• 48 Susan Cornwell, “Expanding the ‘Squad:’ U.S. liberals challenge moderate Democrats to move party le (...)

27Accordingly, Justice Democrats, and the Sunrise movement, as well as other youth organizations, chose several women of color for the 2018 midterm elections. Among the promising candidates supported by Justice Democrats or the Sunrise movement, four were elected in 2018: Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Rachida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The four multi-ethnic progressive women became known as “the Squad” in the House of Representatives.48

• 49 Gregory Krieg, “A 28-year-old Democratic Socialist just ousted a powerful, 10-term congressman in N (...)

28To demonstrate the potential power of this strategy, the story of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) merits particular attention. She was a 28-year-old bartender living in the Bronx at the time, and had strong, progressive convictions. Her brother nominated her to Justice Democrats as a person of interest. The youth-based group supported her candidacy against Joseph Crowley, the fourth most powerful Democrat in the House of Representatives and ten-term incumbent from her New York City district. Crowley had the endorsements of many Democratic Party leaders, including Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives. The young activists were up against formidable odds, but the Justice Democrats and AOC deployed their “people power,” knocking on doors and informing residents of her New York City district about her program vs Crowley’s. Ocasio-Cortez used social media extensively and adroitly, posting videos of herself articulating her positions. She challenged Crowley to debates, which he declined to attend. In June 2018, Ocasio-Cortez won the primary against Crowley by almost fifteen points.49 Rojas recounted:

• 51 Andrew Marantz, “The Youth Movement Trying to Revolutionize Climate Politics,” New Yorker, 28 Feb 2 (...)

30Following the 2018 midterm elections, dozens of Sunrise youths staged a sit-in in the office lobby of Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi on Capitol Hill to highlight the establishment Democrats’ neglect of the climate issue. Sunrise activists asked Ocasio-Cortez if she would tweet her support. She responded that, not only would she support them, she would join them – an audacious move for a newly elected representative, showing that she was willing to challenge the most powerful members of her party. The resulting media coverage catapulted both AOC and the Sunrise Movement into the national spotlight, affording them publicity beyond their wildest imaginings. The sit-in raised Sunrise’s profile, leading to a surge in the number of youths who joined the Sunrise movement. Veteran climate activist, author and founder of 350.org Bill McKibben remarked, “The Pelosi sit-in has got to be one of the most beautifully handled pieces of political theater in American history.”51

• 52 Prakash, Girgenti, op.cit., x.
• 53 Zoya Tierstein, “This 74-year-old senator has a secret weapon: Climate activists.” Grist, 2 Sep 202 (...)
• 54 Nick Engelfried, Movement Makers, 56.

31The sense of urgency was once again extremely high coming into the 2020 elections, as defeating Donald Trump and as many Republicans as possible, was an absolute priority.52 Sunrise endorsed candidates like 74-year-old Senator Ed Markey, for example, who was trailing well behind 39-year-old Joe Kennedy in the polls. Markey had climate credentials going back to 2009 when he co-sponsored the American Clean Energy and Security Act with Representative Waxman, and more recently, the Green New Deal Resolution with Representative Ocasio-Cortez in February 2019. Sunrise deployed its “people power” to recast Markey as a climate champion rather than as a worn-out incumbent, and Markey easily won re-election. Commentators concluded that, without the thousands of phone calls, tweets, emails, and texts that Sunrise youths sent, it is unlikely that Markey would have won.53 Sunrise endorsed seventeen candidates in 2020, a majority of who were elected. Democratic incumbents were beginning to take notice: if the Sunrise movement or Justice Democrats targeted them, they would have to fight – perhaps change their platform, sign a no-fossil-fuel pledge, etc. – in order to be re-elected. The youth activists were starting to wield real power. According to Nick Engelfried, “Sunrise’s electoral interventions were unusually impactful, focusing resources on specific political races chosen for strategic reasons. After elections, Sunrise used highly visible protest tactics to advance policy and hold accountable the politicians they helped put in office.”54

• 55 Id., 57.

34Youth activists’ embrace of the Green New Deal (GND), an initiative of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, represents a danger to those with a strong interest in maintaining the status quo. Indeed, Nick Engelfried wrote, “The Green New Deal, as it was envisioned by Sunrise and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2018, was about much more than jobs; it was a matter of wholesale societal transformation.”55 Fox News, a right-wing news outlet, constantly depicted the GND as a dangerous socialist scheme, to the point that Republicans were more familiar with the GND than Democrats were, as the graph below demonstrates.

• 56 Varshini Prakash, Guido Girgenti, op.cit., xx.

35The constant negative press united detractors against the GND while potential advocates were less acquainted with it, and thus less united in their support. Youths’ efforts to inform their peers, elected officials, and society at large helped counter the negative press and familiarize the public with the project and raise acceptance. Associating this economy-wide transition with the 1930s’ New Deal was done to remind Americans of the positive effect of government action and accentuate the social aspect. The idea that the climate and energy transition could not succeed without environmental and social justice was not new. As Varshini Prakash explained, many groups have contributed to the foundation on which the Green New Deal (GND) was built: indigenous peoples brought age-old wisdom of humans’ relationship to nature. Workers’ unions developed the idea of a just transition that takes care of workers during the disruptive transition. The environmental justice movement brought into focus the inextricable connections between the economic system and climate change. Greta Thunberg inspired the largest numbers of people to take to the streets. What Sunrise contributed to the youth movement, Prakash affirmed, “where we have excelled, has been in taking the fight to the political arena, bringing some of the ideas to greater prominence in the mainstream.”56

• 57 “Young Climate Activists Push Democrats to the Left,” New York Times, 2 Aug 2019.

36Justice Democrats and Sunrise youths succeeded in “moving the needle” to the left, which is all the more extraordinary in the current American political context.57 The widely different degree of salience of the climate issue in the 2016 and 2020 election campaigns provides a good illustration. While climate policy was hardly mentioned during the 2016 presidential primaries, it had become a major talking point by 2020, largely thanks to the relentless climate activism of the youth groups. Young activists put pressure on candidates to support the Green New Deal and to sign the “no fossil fuel money” pledge, meaning that the candidates promised not to accept campaign funds from fossil fuel interests. Nearly all of the twenty-six Democratic presidential candidates signed the pledge and sixteen of the candidates endorsed the Green New Deal. Joe Biden, for his part, released his own, less ambitious, climate plan and eventually signed the pledge.

• 58 Andrew Marantz, op.cit.
• 59 Guido Girgenti, Waleed Shahid, “The Next Era of American Politics”, in Varshini Prakash, Guido Girg (...)

37What is the Green New Deal? Inspired by the 1930s’ New Deal, the Green New Deal calls for the very ambitious target of net zero emissions by 2030, a sustainable, healthy environment, the creation of millions of well-paying jobs, major investment in the nation’s infrastructure, and a just, equitable society. It was co-authored by a 29-year-old black woman, Rhiana Gunn-Wright, who had been recruited to join the progressive think tank, New Consensus, which was working with Sunrise and Justice Democrats. In their communication strategy, youth activists stressed the importance of social and environmental justice: a climate transition without a safety net would result in much backlash, similar to the yellow vest movement in France.58 In February 2019, when Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markey announced the Green New Deal Resolution, establishment Democrats and all Republican lawmakers dismissed it as too radical and impossible to pass in Congress. Proponents explained, “The Democratic Party is in the midst of a battle for its soul. Bernie’s ‘radical’ ideas – Medicare for all, free college, a Green New Deal-sized climate plan – are no longer just Bernie’s but define the agenda of a rising progressive faction in Congress and are increasingly the center of gravity in national Democratic politics.”59

• 60 Sunrise Movement, https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/sunrise-movement/

38In order to raise awareness, Sunrise activists planned several events. On February 26, 2019, Sunrise organized a nationwide “day of action” to advocate for the Green New Deal legislation. Throughout the spring 2019, Sunrise organized a “Green New Deal Tour,” hosting town halls in fifteen cities nationwide to “activate millions” of Americans to support the Green New Deal legislation.60 Likewise, local Sunrise “hubs” held events to raise awareness in their home bases. Engelfried remarked that Sunrise’s strong presence on both local and national levels constituted one of its core strengths.

• 61 Andrew Marantz, op.cit.
• 62 Nina Lakhani, “We don’t have any choice: The young climate activists naming and shaming politicians (...)

39During the November 2018 sit-in in Nancy Pelosi’s office, young activists held signs demanding: “What is your plan?” According to Andrew Marantz, who wrote an extensive piece on the youth climate movement in the New Yorker, Democrats did not have a plan for climate policy.61 Looking toward the 2020 elections, the Biden team recognized that it needed a solid climate plan to propose something that would appeal to a broad section of society. Cognizant of its weak standing with youths and the rising influence of the Sunrise movement, the Biden team contacted Sunrise in 2019, but the young activists fully supported Bernie Sanders. However, when Bernie Sanders withdrew from the Democratic primary and it was clear that Joe Biden would be the Democratic nominee, the Biden team once again contacted the Sunrise leaders, Evan Weber, political director, and Varshini Prakash, executive director. Despite being very critical of Joe Biden, Sunrise cautiously endorsed his candidacy. Troy Turner, 29, Sunrise’s electoral coordinator for Pennsylvania, remarked, “Biden is super unappealing to young people: he represents the old guard of politics, favoring style over substance. Young people are policy voters, but we have to vote for Biden as he represents potential for a livable future. Trump represents the ‘apocalypse.’”62

• 63 Gregory Krieg, “The Sunrise Movement is an early winner in the Biden transition. Now comes the hard (...)

40Joe Biden had stated repeatedly in his exchanges with Donald Trump that he did not endorse the Green New Deal and sought a “middle ground.” Evan Weber pointed out to the Biden team that the message youths were receiving was that climate policy was not a priority. Weber impressed upon the Biden team the utter importance of the issue for youths, stating that: “just as there’s a fierce right wing constituency and it’s animated against the Green New Deal, there’s an even bigger constituency of young people for whom the Green New Deal is something that they are dedicating their lives to realizing and making possible.”63 The Biden team took the remark to heart and, in February 2020, The Hill reported that it had been exchanging regularly with Sunrise leaders.

• 64 Andrew Marantz, op.cit.

41After Joe Biden won the Democratic Party nomination, he and Bernie Sanders formed six task forces to develop the future administration’s policies, hoping to bridge the gap with centrist Democrats.64 Bernie Sanders was in charge of three of the task forces, including the group tackling climate change policy. Alongside scientists, economists, and policy experts, Sanders invited Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Varshini Prakash to participate in the climate policy task force. For an activist to gain national attention is remarkable in and of itself. For a young, ethnic, female leader of a youth movement to command national attention is even more unusual. For such an activist to be invited to help develop policy at the highest level of government is truly exceptional. Based largely on the Green New Deal, the task force developed a comprehensive program of environmental justice and climate mitigation measures that would form the basis of the Build Back Better bill.

• 65 Julian Brave NoiseCat, “Joe Biden has endorsed the Green New Deal in all but name,” Guardian, 20 Ju (...)
• 66 Girgenti, Shahid., op. cit., 212.
• 67 Girgenti, Shahid, op.cit., 236.

42After the 2020 elections, when Democrats won a majority in both houses of Congress and the presidency, the Build Back Better bill, a sweeping $2.2 trillion-dollar program, was passed by the House of Representatives along strict party lines.65 From Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s dismissive comment, “the green dream or whatever they call it,”66 to the Build Back Better Act garnering a majority in the House of Representatives in November 2021, the ideological distance covered was astounding. After years of rightwing ideological dominance or obstructionism amongst Republicans and a default stance of caution and moderation amongst Establishment Democrats, the climate and social justice ideas of the progressives had finally gained prominence. Young climate activists Girgenti and Shahid underlined the sea change: “Biden’s platform has moved far leftward, embracing policies like a robust public option and a $1.7-trillion clean energy investment.”67

• 68 Open Secrets: following the money in politics
• 69 Alexander Bolton, “Inside the secret Manchin-Schumer deal: Dems shocked, GOP feels betrayed,” The H (...)

43In the Senate, however, the Democrats had the slightest of majorities, and passing a climate bill would require the favorable vote of every Democrat. Nominally a Democrat, Senator Joe Manchin is a millionaire in the coal business, who accepts thousands of campaign contribution dollars from fossil fuel proponents.68 In mid-July 2022, it appeared that negotiations had failed, and once again, the United States would miss the opportunity to pass meaningful climate mitigation legislation. But Senator Manchin and the Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer resumed negotiations in secret and on 27 July, in time for a vote on the legislation before the August recess, Senators Manchin and Schumer announced that they had reached agreement on a major tax and climate bill.69 The much watered-down, amended Build Back Better Act, rebranded Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), passed 51-50 in the Senate, requiring the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris. The House passed the IRA on 12 August, and President Joe Biden signed the IRA into law on 16 August 2022.

• 70 “How Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act changed the world,” Financial Times, 6 Dec 2023, https://www.y (...)

44Passing this act was far from a foregone conclusion, and its provisions are expected to have far-reaching positive impacts on the transition to a carbon zero economy and on environmental justice. The Inflation Reduction Act comprises some $700 billion, of which $369 billion is slated to help build a clean energy economy. While this amount is significantly lower than the original Build Back Better Act, it is nevertheless the most substantial legislation to combat climate change in US history, if not the world, according to John Podesta, Biden’s climate advisor, who is overseeing its implementation.70

• 71 Id.

45When the act was finally signed into law, there was much astonishment. Internationally, a positive reaction was quickly replaced by concern, especially in the European Union, as they see the law as a massive subsidy to American industry and economy. Martin Wolf, the Financial Times’ chief economics commentator, said, “It is clearly designed to tell the world that America is back as a major player in world industry and in the climate fight. Sleepy old America is gone.”71

• 72 David Roberts, “Some thoughts on the Inflation Reduction Act,” Volts, 12 Aug 2022.
• 73 David Roberts, Id.

46In the United States, climate journalist David Roberts enthused, “Finally, the US is passing ambitious national climate policy through the Senate. That is…an absolutely historic investment that is going to transform the US domestic clean energy industry and it's going to transform US politics.”72 He predicted that, in addition to the stated provisions of the law, many other benefits will further reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide benefits to society as a whole, like cleaner air leading to better health, which will reduce global health care costs and result in a healthier population. There will also be benefits for American democracy: federal money for investments in clean energy, technology and manufacturing will flow to every state, creating proponents throughout the country. Roberts explains, “It will be easier to pass state and city legislation, easier for the Environmental Protection Agency to create stricter standards for emissions, and easier to pass federal climate legislation in the future, because there will be a wide base of constituents who have a vested interest in furthering these policies.”73

• 74 Gregory Krieg, “The Sunrise Movement is an early winner in the Biden transition,” op.cit.
• 75 Krieg, Id.

47While most of the social policies were dropped from the bill, most of the climate provisions survived: a testament to the efficacy of the climate activists.74  The leadership and the votes of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party were key in passing this legislation, and the youth activists not only were instrumental in electing several of those lawmakers, but they also participated in the policy-making process.75 In an interview with President Biden on the Daily Show in March 2023, host Kal Penn, a former White House staff member during the Obama administration declared, “When I was a White House aide, I remember having meetings in this room on climate… I never would have imagined 12 years ago that something as sweeping on climate as the Inflation Reduction Act would have happened. So my question is: who or what created the political space for you to take that kind of action?” President Biden responded:

• 77 Sidney Tarrow, op.cit.
• 78 Erica Chenoweth, Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know, Oxford University Press, New York, (...)

48The youth climate movement has achieved notable successes in the last few years - from bringing climate policy onto the agenda, to helping elect progressive candidates, to educating the public about the Green New Deal. Political science professor Sidney Tarrow specifies that, “the outcomes of these waves of contention depend not on the justice of the cause or the persuasive power of any single movement, but on their breadth and on the reactions of elites and other groups.”77 The breadth of the youth climate movement has been demonstrated, encompassing conservative and religious groups as well as progressive groups. As for reactions of elites, it is interesting to note the turnaround on climate policy in the four years between two presidential elections. Erica Chenoweth, for her part, emphasizes the importance of sustained pressure on power-holders over time: isolated demonstrations seldom result in victories.78