Many students were among the protesters at this demo at Australia’s biggest coal port in Newcastle in late 2024 – Image: Roni Bintang/Getty Images
“A child turning 10 this year has lived through the 10 hottest years on record,” read a January letter addressed to the Australian government.
Written by four young climate activists, and cosigned by dozens of community leaders, the letter demands a Climate Duty of Care Bill that will protect young people from “climate change harm” as the “world continues to warm and climate disaster increases in frequency and severity.”
It comes in response to the record temperatures, wildfires, storms and floods that have marked Australia in recent years.
As the country goes to the polls on May 3, this rising generation sees a chance to finally voice their climate concerns at the ballot box.
Gen Z and Millennials are going to make up almost 50% of voters this election, outnumbering baby boomers for the first time, notes Natasha Abhayawickrama, a 20-year-old campaigner for the Australian Youth Climate Coalition. This demographic shift has been described as a “youthquake.”
“Many young people [have long felt] disempowered and disenfranchised from politics,” said the campaigner, who was inspired to join the climate movement by Greta Thunberg. She says many youth feel current and former governments have not done enough to address the climate crisis.
“Now we finally have such a huge portion of electoral voting power, we are absolutely going to show up and use it,” she said.
Australia is still a major polluter
Australia, the world’s driest continent, is a major exporter of coal, the most polluting fossil fuel. It is also the world’s second-largest exporter of fossil fuel carbon emissions that are the primary drivers of climate change.
“It’s frightening to think that the planet we reside on is quite rapidly becoming a place we can no longer inhabit,” said Eva Ward, a 19-year-old university student from Melbourne. “Climate change policies are one of the key things I will be focusing on when I vote.”
Over three-quarters of young Australians aged 16-25 are concerned about climate change, according to a 2023 survey, with some 67% saying climate distress is negatively impacting their mental health.
Ward doesn’t believe that either of the major parties are “really doing the issue justice.” She wants to see “a quicker transition to renewable energy,” and a “crackdown” on “emissions and waste from big corporations.”
The Labor party headed by Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese has been strong on clean energy yet continue to approve major coal and gas projects – Image: Mike Bowers/AFP/Getty Images
Meanwhile, the Australian Youth Climate Coalition is demanding planet-heating carbon emissions be reduced by 75% before the end of the decade and that net zero is reached by 2035 — some 15 years ahead of the current government target.
This could be achieved, they suggest, through a rapid transition to 100% renewable energy, a phaseout of all existing fossil fuels, and a ban on new coal, oil and gas projects.
Growing up in the shadow of fossil fuels
These demands are at odds with the massive influence of the fossil fuel sector on Australian politics.
While the incumbent center-left Labor government promotes clean energy, aiming for 82% renewable electricity production by 2030, it has come under fire for approving new coal and gas projects since taking power three years ago.
Meanwhile, the leader of the opposition center-right Liberal party, Peter Dutton, wants to increase gas production, and during a leader debate said he did not know whether climate change results in extreme weather.
While the Liberals support net zero emissions by 2050, they are pushing for a build-out of high-cost nuclear energy over renewables, which are becoming cheaper all the time.
And in a country with what some say is the world’s most expensive real estate market, costs matters.
Lucas Walsh, professor of education culture and society at Monash University in Melbourne, says Australia’s rising generation is facing an unprecedented “world of uncertainty and insecurity.”
Abhayawickrama says young people are “struggling with rent, groceries and energy bills,” and that “climate inaction will only make things worse, especially as we face escalating climate impacts.”
A report co-authored by Walsh on the five top issues for young voters in the 2025 federal election shows that climate was the third biggest concern after housing and job security and finances. Yet it barely registers as an election issue among the broader public, where debates about energy affordability are overwhelming discussion of the energy transition.
Should youth consolidate around the current government?
The perceived failure of governments to deal with what Walsh calls existential “polycrises” means some young people are also disengaging from democracy. Nearly half of Gen Z voters polled in a recent study said they only turned up to cast their ballot in the last election to avoid a fine — voting is compulsory in Australia.
Young people are also less partisan than their parents, says Walsh, meaning they are more likely to vote for minor parties.
Rebekkah Markey-Towler, a research fellow with the Melbourne Climate Futures think tank, agrees there is “a general turn away from the major political parties in Australia.”
In the last federal ballot, pro-climate candidates took numerous seats from the mainstream Labor and Liberal parties with the help of youth voters, and she believes this weekend could produce more along the same lines.
“I think at this election we will see some young people turn towards the Greens and the Teal independents,” Markey-Towler said. Though she added that the ruling Labor government, which wants to host the UN climate conference in Australia in 2026, has made “significant progress” in terms of climate policy.
Young people have grown up amid unprecedented flooding in Australia in recent years – Image: REUTERS
The government’s 2022 Climate Change Act increased emission reduction targets and aims to revitalize investments in climate adaptation and decarbonization. But Walsh cautions that Labor’s climate targets are too “abstract” to satisfy disillusioned young voters demanding “immediate action.”
Climate campaigner Abhayawickrama agrees that the current government has made major investments in renewable energy but says the reforms “have fallen far below the level of action we need for a safe climate.”
Stella Ray, a 19-year-old student based near Melbourne, is among the young voters considering putting a cross for Labor, whose climate targets she says are perhaps more realistic than the Greens party goal of net zero emission by 2035. But she doesn’t expect much to change without “a drastic political shift.”
Meanwhile Eva Ward is resigned to settling for “the best of the worst” at the ballot box, where the youthquake could result in widespread losses for parties with weak climate policies.
“Young people are going decide the outcome of this election,” reiterated Abhayawickrama. (DW.com/NAN 30-04-25)
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