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The Climate Crisis Demands Youth Leadership—And We Must Provide It
The leaders of tomorrow are already here, working to solve the problems that older generations have failed to address. Now, it’s time to support them.
Mar 19, 2025
The stereotype that youth-led climate initiatives are too risky to fund is outdated and, in fact, severely limits the opportunities for talented young entrepreneurs and activists. It stifles the very innovation needed to create a sustainable future. As we grapple with the pressing realities of the climate crisis, it is no longer a matter of whether we should support young leaders; it’s a matter of urgency. To succeed in addressing our environmental challenges, we need to tap into the energy, creativity, and bold leadership that young people bring to the table.
When I was just 16 years old, I submitted a climate research paper to the United Nations Development Program in Pakistan. Since then, I’ve had the privilege of working with global organizations, speaking on CNN about the devastating impact of climate change in my home country, and leading the transformation of a college club into a full-fledged nonprofit. These experiences have shown me firsthand how young people are not just passionate about environmental change—they are driving it.
Yet, despite their passion and fresh ideas, youth-led environmental action remains massively underfunded. Less than 1% of institutional climate funding currently goes toward young people. Many, like myself, have struggled to secure the necessary resources to bring our ideas to life. As the next generation holds the key to solving the climate crisis, failing to support these leaders only exacerbates the problem. The global climate crisis is urgent, and so is the need to empower young people with the funding, mentorship, and platforms they need.
We know time is running out to avert the worst impacts of the climate crisis. If we are to truly address it, we must fund and support young activists today.
I’ve seen this challenge play out in my own journey. As a student in London, I faced challenges from being a woman of color trying to secure funding and support for environmental initiatives. Back in Pakistan, while I’ve been able to push forward with awareness campaigns and advocacy, I’ve encountered plenty of hurdles—whether it’s dealing with politicians who don’t take me seriously or navigating security concerns because of my public activism. Despite these challenges, I remain convinced that the future of climate change solutions lies in the hands of young people—especially women.
Supporting youth-driven solutions is not just about giving young people opportunities—it’s about ensuring our movement is more inclusive, diverse, and effective. Young leaders have the ability to solve problems that older generations may not recognize. I founded the Climate Action Society at University College London, a project that eventually became an international nonprofit. The key to its success was understanding that leadership doesn’t come with age—it comes from a commitment to action and collaboration. The support we received, including recognition from the United Nations and the U.K. Government, was crucial in amplifying our impact.
One of many initiatives directly addressing the need to support youth-led climate solutions is The Iris Prize by The Iris Project, an international award that celebrates and funds young environmental stewards dedicated to catalyzing climate action in their communities. Fiscally hosted by the Global Fund for Children, The Iris Prize invites young people aged 16-24 who are actively protecting local ecosystems, restoring natural habitats, and driving community-based environmental efforts to showcase their innovative ideas and solutions for a sustainable future.
The awards aim to help close the funding gap by shining a light on the action young people are already taking to protect and restore nature, and the lives of those working to defend their environment. Beyond financial support, winners also receive climate communications training, organizational development training, and mentorship, equipping them with the resources they need to increase their impact and scale their projects.
The funds have supported a range of projects, such as revitalising ecosystems in Bolivia, training women in sustainable farming in Guatemala, and addressing pollution in Sierra Leone. These projects are having a real impact on communities, and supporting them through funding will go a long way in helping them scale that impact. At a time when global philanthropic funding has been cut, putting pressure on hundreds of organizations in the global South, funding grassroots initiatives is more important than ever.
As someone who has worked tirelessly in climate activism, I have seen how young people are already changing the world through their grassroots efforts. However, without the support of initiatives like The Iris Prize and others, many of these projects will struggle to scale and reach their full potential.
The global community must shift its mindset. If we are to make a real, lasting difference, we must embrace youth-led initiatives as central to our global strategy. The leaders of tomorrow are already here, working to solve the problems that older generations have failed to address. Now, it’s time to support them.
We know time is running out to avert the worst impacts of the climate crisis. If we are to truly address it, we must fund and support young activists today. The future depends on it. Through initiatives like The Iris Prize and others, we can ensure that youth-led solutions not only thrive but are scaled for maximum impact. Let’s give these innovators the funding and resources to make the change we desperately need.
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Trump Attacks Public Service Workers With 'Blatantly Illegal' Loan Forgiveness Order
"Threatening to punish hardworking Americans for their employers' perceived political views is about as flagrant a violation of the First Amendment as you can imagine," said one critic.
Mar 10, 2025
Criticism of U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order intended to limit a program that forgives the federal student loans of borrowers who take public service jobs has grown since he signed it on Friday.
Opponents frame the order as yet another attempt by Trump to quash dissent. The Republican president directed Education Secretary Linda McMahon to propose revisions to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program, in coordination with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, to exclude "organizations that engage in activities that have a substantial illegal purpose."
The order targets employers "aiding or abetting" violations of federal immigration law and the administration's definition of illegal discrimination, engaging in a pattern of violating state law such as disorderly conduct and obstruction of highways, "supporting terrorism," and "child abuse, including the chemical and surgical castration or mutilation of children or the trafficking of children to so-called transgender sanctuary states for purposes of emancipation from their lawful parents."
Student Defense president Aaron Ament said in a statement that "when PSLF was created by a bipartisan act of Congress and signed into law by [President] George W. Bush, it was a promise from the United States government to its citizens—if you give back to America, America will give back to you."
"In the nearly two decades since, across administrations of both parties, Americans have worked hard and made life decisions under the assumption that the U.S. keeps its word," Ament continued. "Threatening to punish hardworking Americans for their employers' perceived political views is about as flagrant a violation of the First Amendment as you can imagine."
Nadine Chabrier, senior policy counsel at the Center for Responsible Lending, similarly highlighted "serious" First Amendment concerns, saying that "by penalizing individuals seeking loan forgiveness for their associations and the expressive conduct of their employers, new rulemakings could infringe on fundamental rights to speech and association."
"The executive order also undermines the very purpose of PSLF, which Congress established to encourage careers in public service across a broad range of fields," she said. "Stripping PSLF eligibility from nonprofit employees based on the nature of their work will deter skilled professionals from pursuing careers that benefit the public good, weaken critical services for underserved populations and hamper efforts to strengthen vulnerable communities."
American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Randi Weingarten explained that "PSLF is based on the idea that borrowers who make 10 years of repayments, and who often forgo higher wages in the private sector, can avoid a lifelong debt sentence."
The teachers union sued the Trump's first-term education secretary, Betsy DeVos, "and rogue loan servicers for their failure to administer the program—and we won," Weingarten noted. "This latest assault on borrowers' livelihoods is a cruel attempt to finish the demolition job that DeVos started. The goal is to sow chaos and confusion—separately, the PSLF application form has already been taken offline, making it effectively inaccessible."
The Economic Policy Institute pointed out Monday that "since the creation of the PSLF program, more than 1 million borrowers have received student loan forgiveness, largely due to fixes made under the Biden administration."
"More than 2 million individuals currently qualify for the PSLF program, according to the Department of Education," the think tank added. "The executive order could potentially narrow which organizations qualify for the program."
Student Borrower Protection Center executive director Mike Pierce blasted the order as "blatantly illegal and an all-out weaponization of debt intended to silence speech that does not align with President Trump's MAGA agenda."
"It is an attack on working families everywhere and will have a chilling effect on our public service workforce doing the work every day to support our local communities," Pierce warned. "Teachers, nurses, service members, and other public service workers deserve better than to be used as pawns in Donald Trump's radical right-wing political project to destroy civil society. This will raise costs for working people while doing nothing to make America safer or healthier."
In addition to scathing critiques, some groups threatened to challenge the order. Weingarten vowed that "the AFT won't stop fighting, in court and in Congress, until every single public service worker gets the help the law affords them."
Ament declared that "if the Trump administration follows through on this threat, they can plan to see us in court."
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Energy Transfer Is Putting Free Speech and Climate Activism on Trial
A lawsuit against Greenpeace in North Dakota threatens the existence of all nonprofits.
Feb 21, 2025
Imagine a world without effective nonprofit advocacy. When a corporation exploits a local community, no one speaks up or resists. Everyone is too afraid of the weaponized legal system, too vulnerable to liability. The ultra-wealthy take whatever they want and leave others to pick up the pieces. Opposition and resistance have been extinguished.
Those are the risks of a lawsuit against Greenpeace, now going to trial in North Dakota after a seven-year legal battle. Energy Transfer, the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline, is seeking $300 million for tort damages, including defamation. Energy Transfer’s previous attempt to sue Greenpeace under federal anti-racketeering laws was blocked by the courts. But the state charges have been upheld, with a trial beginning on February 24, and free-speech advocates are raising alarms about the dangerous precedent that would follow a loss for Greenpeace, or even from the trial proceeding at all.
I recently spoke with Scott W. Badenoch, Jr., a visiting attorney at the Environmental Law Institute. He’s part of a team of distinguished international legal scholars, including Steven Donziger and Jeanne Mirer, who have launched a Trial Monitoring Committee to ensure the case against Greenpeace proceeds fairly and transparently.
While the Trial Monitors and some activists will be on the ground in North Dakota, we need to make noise online and in the media, ensuring that as many people as possible know what’s at stake.
As Badenoch described it, the court is trying to maintain “as much of a black box as you could possibly create in the U.S. court system.” Judge James Gion recently denied a motion to allow live streaming of the trial proceedings.
Instead, Badenoch said the case should be dismissed immediately. The allegations attempt to hold Greenpeace responsible for the actions of activists and volunteers unaffiliated with the group. Legal advocates and climate organizers have called it an unconstitutional SLAPP suit, intended to burden Greenpeace with costly legal fees, shut them down, and restrict the free speech of nonprofits more broadly. “There is absolutely no justification for this trial happening in this court, at this time, with this judge,” Badenoch said. “Just none.”
In a press release from the Trial Monitoring Committee, Steven Donziger pointed to recent trends, writing that “this appears to be part of a broader strategy by the fossil fuel industry to weaponize the courts against activists and weaken organizations like Greenpeace in retaliation for their advocacy.”
While the trial itself presents dangers, the recent actions of Energy Transfer have also brought accusations of jury-tampering. In October, residents of rural Morton County, North Dakota, where the trial will be set, received what appeared to be a legitimate newspaper. However, it contained almost exclusively critical attacks on Greenpeace and the pipeline protests, while praising Energy Transfer. The “newspaper” was actually a political mailer from a company called Metric Media, with links to electioneering and fossil fuel companies, as reported in the North Dakota News Cooperative. Even more concerning, financial records link the CEO of Energy Transfer, Texas billionaire Kelcy Warren, to the creation of the fake newspaper. It looks a like blatant attempt to taint the jury pool. Despite this, Judge Gion refused to allow Greenpeace to investigate the origins of the biased mailer.
The crucial role of the Trial Monitoring Committee is to bring attention to these abuses of due process. “We are going to monitor this case one way or the other,” Badenoch told me. “But the more that [Judge Gion] withholds transparency and access from us, the more obvious it is that something is going on that they don’t want people to see.”
Meanwhile, the stakes of the case extend far beyond Greenpeace. If Energy Transfer is successful, Badenoch said, the precedent would be cataclysmic for nonprofit advocacy. An organization could be held liable for any actions by any activists, however tenuously affiliated. “Literally every social justice, climate justice, civil rights, human rights organization across the country—and maybe the planet—is at risk of legal murder in a courtroom, where an organization is put to death by a SLAPP suit.”
As members of the public, that means we all have a responsibility to advocate for transparency, fairness, and ideally dismissal of Energy Transfer’s lawsuit. While the Trial Monitors and some activists will be on the ground in North Dakota, we need to make noise online and in the media, ensuring that as many people as possible know what’s at stake. Badenoch was emphatic about this: “The number one thing is to bring attention to the case. Don’t let Greenpeace die with a whimper.”
In a time of chaos and distraction, it’s all too easy to let cases like this one go unnoticed. But the risks are simply too dire to ignore. “It’s absolutely terrifying for advocacy in this country and beyond. The risks are really hard to overstate,” Badenoch told me. “If Greenpeace is allowed to die in this field in North Dakota, then every single nonprofit is next in line.”
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