At COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye, young people from across the world are demanding more than symbolic inclusion in global climate negotiations — they want a seat where the decisions are actually made. The Children and Youth Pavilion, now in its fifth consecutive year at the UN Climate Change Conference, has opened its doors as the only fully youth-led space within the official COP process, reinforcing a growing movement that refuses to treat the climate crisis as a problem for future generations.

A Platform Built by and for Young People

The pavilion's opening ceremony drew prominent figures from both the global climate and youth movements. Sally Higgins and Marcele Oliveira, the COP31 and COP30 Presidency Youth Climate Champions respectively, addressed the gathering alongside representatives from institutional partners including UNICEF, the Children's Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), and the British Council. The event was also attended by frontline activists whose testimonies underscored the lived urgency behind the policy debates unfolding in Antalya's negotiating rooms.

The pavilion is staffed by 10 young spokespeople, aged between 14 and 31, who represent diverse geographies and areas of expertise. Their role is to keep children's and young people's priorities visible across different negotiation tracks throughout the conference.

Voices from the Frontline

Among the most striking voices at the opening was Brianna Fruean, a Samoan environmental activist working at the intersection of ocean and climate issues and serving as a Pacific Advisor to the Presidency Youth Climate Champion Team. For Fruean, the pavilion is far more than a ceremonial gesture. 'It's of utmost importance to have a pavilion like this,' she said.

Fruean articulated what has become a central argument of the youth climate movement: that young people must be active participants in negotiations, not passive recipients of outcomes. 'If there's no youth participation in spaces such as COP, there's no sustainability for our movement, because what is decided at this conference today is what the youth of tomorrow will need to be implementing. So how do you make plans without the implementers?' she said.

Her argument reflects a broader frustration among frontline communities — particularly those in small island and coastal nations — that the people most affected by climate change are often least represented at the tables where climate policy is forged.

Institutional Backing and Programme Scope

The pavilion's programming brings together a broad coalition of organisations, including UNDP, UNICEF, Save the Children, UNOPS, and the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), alongside a range of youth-led groups working on the frontlines of climate action. The mix of institutional weight and grassroots energy is deliberate — a signal that youth participation at COP is no longer a side event, but an embedded feature of the formal process.

First established at COP27, the Children and Youth Pavilion has steadily expanded its footprint within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process, providing a structured space for young people to showcase initiatives, engage with policymakers, and push for accountability on climate commitments.

Why This Moment Matters

This comes amid growing pressure on governments to accelerate climate action ahead of critical deadlines under the Paris Agreement. Youth movements have consistently argued that the gap between negotiated commitments and on-the-ground implementation is widest in the communities that young people come from — and that closing it requires their direct involvement in designing solutions.

As delegates work through the official negotiating text in Antalya, the pavilion's fifth edition stands as a reminder that the legitimacy of climate decisions increasingly depends on whether the next generation had any hand in making them.