The Youth Organizations Forum (GoFor) and the National Council of Swedish Children and Youth Organisations (LSU) have published a joint policy paper in the lead-up to COP31. Prepared with contributions from youth organisations in Türkiye and Sweden, the paper offers a critical perspective on the current policy framework addressing the climate crisis.
Read the full policy paper here.
The policy paper makes clear that the climate crisis cannot be treated as a purely technical issue. It emphasises that existing climate policies shaped around economic growth, market-based instruments, and private sector priorities are structurally incapable of delivering a just and effective transformation. It therefore argues that climate governance must be rethought on the basis of redistribution, public responsibility, and democratic participation.
This policy paper was developed within the framework of the Exchange Programme on Environmental Sustainability and Justice, carried out in partnership with LSU. The second meeting of the programme took place in Brussels between 23-27 February 2026. During this phase, representatives of youth organisations from Türkiye and Sweden took part in a week-long capacity-building programme and engaged with international institutions. The policy paper was shared with decision-makers during these meetings. The demands of youth organisations on climate policy were communicated to various international actors in the lead-up to COP31. For more details, click here.
From COP30 to COP31: implementation discourse and structural constraints
The paper shows that despite COP30 being framed around “implementation”, it did not produce a structural transformation in climate governance. It notes that steps taken on adaptation finance and monitoring mechanisms do not address the root causes of the climate crisis.
The absence of a binding framework for phasing out fossil fuels and the continued reliance on market-based climate finance are identified as key limitations of the current approach. In this context, COP31 is presented as a critical juncture between maintaining existing governance models and moving towards a more just, public, and transformation-oriented climate policy.
Common challenges in climate policy in Türkiye and Sweden
The policy paper approaches Türkiye and Sweden not through a comparative hierarchy, but through shared structural tendencies. It highlights that in both countries, climate policies are shaped in different ways around market-compatible instruments, private sector priorities, and growth-oriented approaches.
In the case of Türkiye, the paper points to market-centred climate policies, weak mitigation targets, and continued dependence on fossil fuels. In Sweden, key issues include trends towards deregulation, mining policies, and the rights of Indigenous communities. In this sense, the paper highlights the limits of growth-oriented climate policies that operate in similar ways across different contexts.
Türkiye’s ‘Zero Waste’ vision
The policy paper also places particular focus on how climate policy in Türkiye is increasingly presented internationally through the “Zero Waste” vision. It notes that issues such as waste reduction and circularity are not problematic in themselves; however, in the Turkish context, this narrative functions more as a form of climate branding rather than opening up a discussion on the structural drivers of the climate crisis. In this sense, the paper highlights Türkiye’s position as one of the countries importing large amounts of plastic waste from Europe as a key contradiction between sustainability discourse and actual practice.
The paper also points out that in recycling and waste processing sectors, young people and migrant youth are often employed under precarious and unsafe conditions, creating a new form of exploitation under the banner of the green transition. It emphasises that risks stemming from weak environmental oversight, lack of occupational safety, and the handling of hazardous waste shift the social costs of climate policy onto young people. For this reason, the paper argues that climate leadership should not be assessed through symbolic narratives such as “Zero Waste”, but through concrete measures such as stricter regulation of waste trade, the protection of labour rights, and stronger environmental oversight.
Key demands ahead of COP31
The final section of the policy paper sets out a series of recommendations for the COP31 process. These include approaching climate finance on the basis of redistribution, strengthening the Loss and Damage Fund through justice-based mechanisms, establishing binding timelines for fossil fuel phase-out, integrating post-growth economic approaches into policymaking, tightening regulation of waste and extractive economies, recognising youth participation as a right, protecting civic space, and ensuring labour rights within the green transition.
In this sense, the paper brings together the demands of youth organisations for climate justice, democratic participation, and structural transformation within a common framework in the lead-up to COP31.
A joint intervention ahead of COP31
This policy paper, which we prepared together with LSU, makes the limits of current climate governance visible and puts forward an alternative direction for the COP31 process. It challenges approaches that treat climate policy as a technical issue and instead offers a more just, public, and democratic framework from a youth perspective.
Read the full policy paper here.
* This policy paper, reflects solely the views, approaches, and demands of the participants from Sweden to “the Exchange Programme on Environmental Sustainability and Justice: Phase II”, jointly organised by the Youth Organizations Forum (GoFor) and the National Council of Swedish Children and Youth Organizations (LSU) in February 22-28, 2026. It represents the collective insights and perspectives shared during the programme and does not reflect the official positions or policies of LSU. Where the term ‘LSU’ is used in this paper/brief, it refers exclusively to the participants from LSU who took part in the exchange programme, and not to the whole organisation.
