WHY CLIMATE PESSIMISM IS TEMPTING, BUT WRONG

The most important change is that young people are already helping to implement solutions

- BY ANTONIOS VOULOUDIS | Special to Gulf News

Scroll through global headlines and it is easy to conclude that sustainability has lost momentum.

Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) is questioned more openly than it was a few years ago. Reporting requirements in some jurisdictions have been softened. Political attention has shifted elsewhere. For many young people, this creates a sense of fatigue, or worse, the feeling that climate action is quietly being deprioritised.

That reading is understandable, but it is incomplete. While parts of the global conversation have stalled, the centre of gravity is shifting toward execution. Nowhere is this clearer than in the UAE, where the focus has moved decisively from setting ambition to embedding systems, laws, skills, and accountability. This is precisely why youth engagement matters more now than during the era of pledges and declarations.

Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week (ADSW), and particularly the Youth for Sustainability Forum and Hub, reflects this shift. The value of bringing thousands of young people together is not symbolic. It is practical. The next phase of the sustainability transition will be shaped by those who understand how policy, technology, finance, and behaviour intersect in the real world, and who can translate that understanding into delivery.