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Presentation at the 2024 GRASP Knowledge Festival

We gave the talk ‘Global Youth and Climate Action’ at this year’s GRASP Knowledge Festival in Roskilde. We discussed the differentiated impacts and consequences of climate change around the world and the uneven possibilities for young people to address these through global movements and global goals. Our talk was part of an exciting series called ‘Mobile Campus’, where Roskilde University moves class lectures to the GRASP Knowledge Festival to foster knowledge sharing between different participants.
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  • Universal Aspirations vs. Geopolitical Divides: Imagining the World as a “Post-Millennial” in the SDG Era (Research Project)
    • Image of the project team at GRASP
    Photo by: Halim Rahman
    By: Tirza van Bruggen

     

    We took our project to this year’s GRASP Festival, which took place in Roskilde’s creative district ‘Musicon’ on September 26 and 27, 2024. GRASP is part of the Roskilde Festival Group and the organization’s platform for knowledge and networking. Through pop-ups, networking events and knowledge publications GRASP aims to (co-)create new perspectives on sustainable change. The GRASP Knowledge Festival is an annual two-day event with talks, panel debates, workshops, music and art exhibitions dedicated to inspiring each other with new ideas and perspectives on sustainable change—across different fields of expertise.

    Our talk, ‘Global Youth and Climate Action,’ was part of a series called ‘Mobile Campus’, where Roskilde University moves lectures to the GRASP Knowledge Festival to foster knowledge sharing and cross-inspiration between GRASP participants, students, and lecturers. Our talk, which was part of our Global and Development Studies Master’s program course ‘Sustainability, Development and Inequality,’ discussed the differentiated impacts and consequences of climate change around the world and the uneven possibilities for young people to address these challenges through global movements and global goals. 

    Besides our own students, the talk attracted a diverse and engaged group of listeners. This led to a lively discussion about varied climate change impacts and actions around the world, differences and similarities in concerns and frustrations about climate change, the multiple motivations behind (in)action and generational differences in views and engagement. Collectively, the audience formulated important questions as to what constitutes ‘sustainable action’, whether ‘small’ actions help, how and why young people join climate movements, and how we can break our entrenched relationship with materialism.