Climate change and cost of living dominate young people's future worries 

Climate activist, Greta Thunberg at a protest during Cop26 last November. Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Climate change and living costs are the main sources of future worry for almost four out of five teenagers in Ireland, while the majority doubt the country will meet its environmental targets over the next two decades.

Mirroring what has become one of the pressing issues of recent years for young people all over the world, nearly a quarter of Irish teenagers describe themselves as climate activists, research commissioned by Young Social Innovators (YSI) showed.

The non-profit organisation for young people examined the mental health concerns of so-called "generation Z", broadly defined as those born between the late 1990s and the end of the 2000s.

Young people have shown how serious they are about climate change, with school strikes all over the world led by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and others in recent years.

Cop26, the UN climate change summit in Glasgow last November, saw young people from all over the world, including Ireland, descend on the Scottish city as world leaders gathered, demanding real action on climate change, especially in countries bearing the brunt of the crisis through flooding, heatwaves, and drought.

The new research on 1,090 Irish teenagers found major scepticism about the Government's intentions in tackling the climate crisis.

Of future worries, some 78% cited climate change, just one percentage point below the top issue, the cost of living. Some 51% believe Ireland won’t hit its key climate goals within the next 20 years, while nearly nine in 10 believe society and the government is not doing enough. 

It is not only political leaders that are failing in the crisis, most teenagers said.

More than four in five believe companies are failing to play their part, while 45% don’t believe individual people are doing enough.

When it comes to their own behaviour, some 94% claim they currently recycle, 76% say they are careful about food wastage, 70% use public transport, 53% buy secondhand clothes, and 42% buy food that doesn’t rely on plastic packaging.

Four in five claim they have no intention of owning a car powered by petrol or diesel.

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