Why young people must be involved in climate action decisions

As young people have the most at stake from decisive climate action, our panel demanded to be involved in key decisions. 

Welcome from Dionne Bimpong from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, who chaired the panel session.

In this session we’ll hear from young people who are passionate advocates for youth engagement in the built environment. Far too often, young people are left out of the conversation about changes to their local areas, or other place-based issues that impact their futures. 

Young people are disproportionately affected by climate change, Dionne said. They will feel its impact not just physically but also mentally, socially and economically. This panel is an effort to shift the narrative and explore how the sector can do better for young Londoners.  

 Speakers 

• Dionne Bimpong, Policy Advisor, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (Chair) 
• Polly Waterworth, Operations Director, We Rise 
• Safaa Usmani, Independent Development Consultant
• Bhav Ghedia, Elevate Hackney 
• Anushka Gupta, Architectural student, University of Bath 

Safaa Usmani, independent development consultant

Safaa is a graduate of Future of London’s Emerging Talent Programme and has a background in planning, socio-economics and stakeholder engagement.

Safaa recently worked for Arup on a national infrastructure programme in Peru. She reflected on her experiences through the lens of climate resilience.

• Peru already suffers from extreme weather events on account of changing temperatures in the Pacific Ocean. The El Niño weather pattern destroyed a lot of civil infrastructure in 2017, including hospitals, schools and old flood defences.
• Safaa saw that many Peruvians were open to getting involved in flood prevention, while she worked for Arup’s stakeholder engagement team. Locals had seen instances of extreme weather for decades, and knew they couldn’t ignore it, even if they often distrusted government interventions.
• Peru and other Latin American countries have a great culture of protest, Safaa said. She’s excited to see young people becoming more vocal about how they want things to be in the UK as well.

“I live on a narrow boat, and we’ve got permanent mooring. But there are others who are constant cruisers, and I don’t know how people are supposed to get in touch with them to have their say on the water ways. I don’t know how you find ‘hard-to-find’ people.”

Polly Waterworth, We Rise 

Polly is Chief Operating Officer at We Rise, a Brixton-based social enterprise with a mission to empower young people. She worked as an architect for twenty years before becoming an advocate for youth voice.  

Polly shared how community engagement can provide valuable experiences for young people. 

• We Rise turns its clients’ engagement projects into high quality work experiences for young people, Polly explained. These are based around peer research and give young people the opportunity to be creative, while getting their say on placemaking.  

• Polly’s experiences have shown her that young people from under-resourced backgrounds often have unique perspectives and creative ideas. They have valuable ideas might not get thought about professionally, unless the sector takes new steps to empower their voices. 

• There are a lot of people in the construction industry who become extremely well off as a result of development, Polly said. “Yes, they take on a lot of risk. But there’s still an equity imbalance.” Paying young people for their time is a first step to addressing this. 

“Young people get an enormous amount out of it. They get networks, careers, insights and inspiration. And our client gets a very valuable piece of work. But the most important thing is ensuring that the young people get agency.” 

Bhav Ghedia, Elevate Hackney 

Bhav sits on Elevate Youth Board, an advocacy group that ensures regeneration led by the  London Legacy Development Corporation meet the needs of young people. Her background is in architecture and she is passionate advocate for youth engagement and governance.  

Bhav shared best-practice examples of youth engagement in placemaking. 

• The Elevate Youth Board is a client for the Waterden Green space in Stratford. Part of this space is being designed for girls – and young people have been involved from the very beginning of this design process. The design team have worked with young people to shape design principles, choose materials and determine what they want the space to look and feel like.  

• Bhav has worked with Open City, a not-for-profit that designs programmes for young people at all stages of education. These support children and youth to get engage with  architecture through the lens of sustainability, for example by sketching, doing site visits and model making with workshops lead by architects.  

• Once programs are finished, young people often continue to suggest changes to their families, parents and schools, Bhav said. These help to enforce some of the ideas and models they’ve learned about. 

“I’ve seen eight and nine-year-olds discussing placemaking and coming up with creative ideas about safety and sustainability. This highlighted for me the importance of involving young people of all ages when coming up with ideas – and not just educating them.” 

Anushka Gupta, University of Bath 

Anushka is studying architecture at the University of Bath. She brings to the discussion her experiences organising, researching, talking to her grandparents and reflecting on herself.

Anushka reflected on her recent internship at SEA LAB in Ahmedabad and the displays of resilience she saw during her stay.

• In India, many people live within infrastructure systems that fail them. There’s an Indian concept called ‘jugaad’, which means that you make do with what you have. Anushka has taken inspiration from this resilience and is applying it to her life in the UK.
• She saw that the effects of monsoon flooding are completely different across a city. Anushka couldn’t sleep at night – but others’ houses were filled with water. Equity must be designed into resilience infrastructure, she realised. It’s not enough to just focus on populous areas.
• Anushka is interested in harnessing climate anxiety for climate action, and how we can leverage change as part of a community.

“Rather than architecture and design, what I learned in India was watching the resilience of these people and how they exist with each other. There’s a culture of care that’s embedded within India, of taking care of someone else selflessly.”

Future of London’s takeaways 

Young people are often excluded from decision-making that shapes the neighbourhoods they inhabit. Yet those working in youth engagement see that children as young as eight can think creatively about the built environment and the big challenges London faces. 

Employing young people as peer-researchers in community engagement is a good way to provide them with valuable work experience. Such initiatives can help to address a power imbalance in who benefits from regeneration, assuming young people are paid for their time. 

Our youth panellists reflected on their experiences across the world, where they’ve seen devastating impacts of extreme weather events. Their stories show that residents are naturally engaged in the aftermath of climate disasters, and that inequity can be plain to see across a city. They urge us to reflect – how can London use our window of opportunity to put in place climate resilience for all?  

Conference session write-ups

Keynotes: Mete Coban (Deputy Mayor), Emma Howard Boyd (London Climate Resilience Review), Indy Johar (Dark Matter Labs)

Fresh Perspectives – Young people-led panel discussion

Fresh Perspectives – Two US projects using art and culture to explore climate resilience

Including All Voices – ensuring communities are fully involved

Neighbourhood Futures – Tackling climate resilience and health equity

Homes and Buildings – Designing inclusive climate approaches

Council-led Housing Network – climate resilience through council development

Fresh Perspectives – Alumni ideas on climate resilience, plus domestic retrofit and infrastructure innovation in Arnhem

Inclusive Finance – Financial models for equitable climate resilience

Neighbourhoods – Designing inclusive climate approaches

Health and Racial Equity – Developing community-led action for ethnic minority communities

Make It Happen – Closing plenary with conference takeaways, including governance, finance and partnerships

Strand Aldwych Walking Tour – how a striking new landscape was created in the historic London

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The conference is part of our major Knowledge programme for 2024/25, with a final report in Spring 2025. Find out more about our Climate Resilience and Equity programme.

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