Young People Are Changing Their Socio-Ecological Reality to Face Climate Change: Contrasting Transformative Youth Commitment with Division and Inertia of Governments

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article is devoted to the socio-ecological reality of youth. This topic is one of the most important for sustainable development. The authors conducted an internal study, and the methods of conducting the study correspond to the task. However, there is no Methodology section. Without this section, the nodal point in the perception of the text is lost.

It is also necessary to register the "Limitations" section.

In the abstract, it is necessary to clearly show the purpose of the study.

The article contains sentences that begin with the impersonal "It", "This", etc. For example, "It demonstrates". These sentences should get a clearer formulation using a noun. This improvement will help to avoid ambiguity in understanding the author's ideas.

Unfortunately, the authors did not prescribe the Methodology section separately. This section is necessary because it will allow the authors to show the process of their important research and the positions from which they proceed.

In the Introduction, the authors raise issues of ecology and the attitude of young people to ecology and climate change. However, the authors do not address the environmental practices of young people. This question is important because this study is of vital practical importance. Here it is necessary to raise the topic of the responsibility of the younger generation to the planet, which they manifest in their daily practices. I note that the list of references in this article can be increased since it does not contain works on the topic of environmental education. The lack of education on climate change issues was noted, but this issue was not submitted as an international one. To enrich their work in these areas, the authors, for example, can refer to the following works:

Balundė, Audra, Goda Perlaviciute and Inga Truskauskaite-Kuneviciene. “Sustainability in Youth: Environmental Considerations in Adolescence and Their Relationship to Pro-environmental Behavior.” Frontiers in Psychology 11 (2020): https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.582920

Shutaleva, A., Martyushev, N., Nikonova, Z., Savchenko, I., Abramova, S., Lubimova, V., & Novgorodtseva, A. (2022). Environmental behavior of youth and sustainable development. Sustainability (Switzerland), 14(1), [250]. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14010250

Shutaleva, A., Nikonova, Z., Savchenko, I., & Martyushev, N. (2020). Environmental education for sustainable development in Russia. Sustainability (Switzerland), 12(18), [7742]. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12187742

The conclusion should contain the provisions that follow the study. Therefore, the statements "As we are writing" in the Conclusion are superfluous. The conclusion can be expanded since the content of the article is richer than the conclusions. The authors conducted an empirical study, so in conclusion, it is necessary to note the most significant results.

Author Response

We thank you for the comments you send us to improve the suitability of our manuscript with the special issue.

In the introduction, we give a complex definition of Climate services, relying on a meta-analysis of the titles of the 212 articles published in the Journal Climate Services (Elsevier). There is a great distance between most experiences of Climate Service and our project.

How far climate services are an appropriate method and notion to undertake such issues? Climate Services are a method that seeks to provide understandable climate data and scenarios to facilitate decision-making by economic actors, and to a lesser extent by public managers according to the analysis of the 27 volumes published by the Climate Services Journal (2016-2022, APPENDIX A). This objective requires the co-construction of indicators that make sense to stakeholders, taking into account their perceptions and knowledge, and evaluating the relevance of communication tools (web service, mapping, application). However, this societal issue is only highlighted in the title of one publication out of five. Although this method has been applied to countries at different levels of development, and even more rarely to small-holders, the word service must be understood in the economic sense, and in the utilitarian sense, i.e. that the beneficiaries will generally pay the scientists for this service (market issue). A disinterested approach of climate services to youth therefore is necessary. Climate Services need to be altered to better support interdisciplinary, action-directed educational efforts. This notion has not yet been applied for education purposes and addressed to young people, i.e. future economic stakeholders. Our approach is therefore innovative and ethical, searching the awareness of a social category neglected by Climate Services research, although it is the most impacted by climate change on their future livelihood. In this sense, our project aims to inform and form through action future leaders, that will have to cope with climate change. Co-construction is at the heart of the pedagogical approach we advocate.

We give an answer to most of your comments in the conclusion

In this sense, the GYCP project is a manner of renewing Climate Services, by deepening their objectives and applying them to a promising segment of the society. Our approach, while inspired by certain aspects of the concept of climate services, is a rather radical re-reading of it on several points. Our partners are underprivileged high school students from the public sector. The researchers and associated teachers are volunteers. The depth of the co-construction of knowledge is far from both traditional pedagogy and the co-construction carried out within the framework of climate services, which aims at transforming knowledge and climate data into "useful" indicators for the economic activity of the interlocutors.

From a social experimentation point of view, we solicit the collective intelligence of young people by suggesting a reflexive involvement and a conscious commitment from the elaboration of action and experimentation projects. The impact on educational orientations is reflected above all in the way we deal with the complexity of an essentially transversal subject. Our approach is the complete opposite of a utilitarian, ready-made, top-down proposal. It is the group of students who, after a local diagnosis, suggest a contextualized and problematized project, according to a bottom-up approach. The question is not what researchers can promote in climate-vulnerable regions, where a significant proportion of socially disadvantaged young people live, but what are the "good actions" that these young people can propose to obtain more precise and therefore more useful results. For example, how climate services could integrate ancestral knowledge. All these principles are the basis of a pedagogical book for teachers [19].

Climate services may be a tool that can help young generations to cope with the dangers and perspectives linked with the increasing variability and change in climate, in a perspective of reconceptualization to reinforce the actions undertaken by the students, like Forest gate-keepers, Stone-gardens or Agro-ecology. The question raised by this experience is how far climate services can support young people in their efforts to design a sustainable climate reality?

 

We organize the manuscript in three sections

This paper reports in the first section a presentation of the study case, the Global Youth Pact for Climate (GYPC) project, and the methodology used to monitor and assess its efficiency and effectiveness, compared to the inertia and division of governments. The second section traces how GYCP was driven by young people's growing concern about climate change, the transformation that the GYCP project generates on students, on their awareness of the problem and on their eagerness to become actors of change. The third section compare this transformative pathway with the fragmentation of views and inaction of the governments, highlighted by a mapping of the discourses underlying the contribution of the governments to the Paris agreement. The final conclusion puts this experiment in perspective with those conducted in the context of climate services.

 

We included in the sub-section 1 a rapid description of the methodology used to monitor and assess the project

Methodology used to monitor and assess the GYCP Project

Several methods have been used to monitor the projects and assess the growing awareness of the students, and to co-construct a common language and vision while respecting cultural diversity. During the large meetings that brought together the delegations of all the countries, we used the crowdsourcing method, which made it possible to dynamically question a very large panel of participants, even beyond those who were physically present. This method, implemented with the help of an external service provider specializing in this technique, made it possible to obtain significant statistical results. The main question asked referred to the degree of sensitivity of young people to the impact of climate change. Three editions followed one another, in 2015 during the COP 21, with 600 participants, in 2017 with 918 participants and in 2019, during the COP24 in Madrid with 300 participants.

A more intimate mode used during the development of the project in each country was the focus group. The interest of this technique was to strengthen the group as an interlocutor, and to allow, through this collective mode, a freeing of the word and for the young people to overcome their shyness. These focus groups made it possible to bring to light deep-seated questions on the part of the young people. They stimulate the appropriation of the knowledge about climate change in their cultural reality and the elaboration of action-projects adapted to each context.

Finally, we also sought to evaluate the degree of success of the 55 projects by developing a composite index, taking into account the precision of the projects, their ability to be disseminated in the wider youth community, and the level of concrete realization they achieved. Each of these criteria was scored from 1 to 4, providing a readable indicator for evaluating the projects and comparing their level of success.

Indexes	Focus	Dissemination	Effectiveness
1	General	Only one class	Meeting
2	Accurate but limited	More high school class	Community
3	Accurate and concerning more people	More high schools	Community, decision makers
4	Targeting	Community	Implementation of concrete experiments

Finally, we compare the accomplishment of the young people who participate in the GYCP project with the inertia and division of countries. For this aim, we overlay the location of all the GYPC projects with a map highlighting the way the different governments understood their engagement in the Paris Agreement. This map has been realized through the analysis of the nationally intended contributions of 191 countries, with an automatic method. We also draw the lessons of the participation of the GYCP to the different COPs, in which young people disseminate their realizations. 

The presentation of the project is very confusing. Explain very early on the overall structure of this project, tell in a few steps what was done (explain in a few words at the beginning the steps/phases of the project), why (what was the purpose), when (explain when the steps took place and in what order) and how (explain the role of the participants and actors, who is "us", and then who are the researchers and teachers). THEN, not earlier, you can explain each step.
Explain in the new version
 
What is the purpose of this study/research? Include it in the abstract, from the beginning.
State the purpose and explain what you have done and how. Later, on line 76, you state that you are doing an experiment - this should be clarified in your research question presented in the first part of your abstract.
Insert in the abstract
 
Lines 16 to 17
Insert in text
 Line 21  
Explain in the text 
Unclear statement in line 23-25: 
1) No, the main conclusion of our study is the role that young people play in a social transformation strategy
2) The experimental actions that propose young people perfectly illustrate the Signs
 We have reworked this new question. Our study did not deal with this issue at all
 
Line 30 
Fundamental, is a sign of social recognition
 Line 36: 
Translation issue
 Line 47: 
Explain in the text
 Line 60: 
Translation problem. We are humble, we only have 31 countries in our study representative of the whole continent
 Line 64: 
We are the GYCP scientists
 Line 73: ... 
Line 75 : 
Line 76 : 
Line 96-97 : 
Indigenous knowledge of original peoples, Indigenous peoples, ancestral culture 
 Line 129 : 
Line 134 : 
Line 133-134 : 
Line 140: 
Is a research question in methodological terms
 Line 145-146: 
Explain in the text
Lines 157-159 : 
Line 188: 
Line 226 : 
Disagree
Line 234: 
Line 342-344 : 
 
Lines 352-355: .
You have another reading of our article, at no point do we address the issue of ESD, this is not the purpose of the research and even less our conception of climate change education 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This paper introduces an interesting project based on participation of young people from several countries. However, the structure and presentation of the paper is unclear to the reader making it difficult to get an overview of what was done (step of the project), when (in what order), by whom (explain who are "we" in the text), and why (what was the purpose).

 

The most urgent revision should include:

– serious language proofreading (mostly sentence structures and use of tenses).

– presenting an overall aim of the research (in abstract and introduction), including sub-research questions.

– revisit the list of references and make sure that all references are according the journal standards. There are several issues to correct.

 

Above points reveal that this paper could be considered for publication, but not until major revision is completed taking into consideration above points, and below explanations.

 

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Following are tips aimed at supporting the authors to revise the paper.

 

The presentation of the project is very confusing. Explain early on the overall structure of this project, say in few steps what was done (explain in few words in the beginning the steps/phases of the project), why (what was the purpose), when (explain when the steps took place and in what order) and how (explain the role of the participants and actors, who is "we", and then who are the researchers and teachers). THEN, not earlier you can explain each step.

 

What is the aim of this study/research? Include it in the abstract, early on.

State the aim and the explain what you did and how. Later on, in line 76, you state doing an experiment - it should be clarified in your research question presented in the first part of your abstract.

 

Lines 16–17: Rewrite the first part of the abstract, clarifying how “it” contributes to a critical re-reading of the notion of Climate Services, and connect that sentence to the next one.

 

Line 21: What is automatic text analysis? HOW can such a method evidence a different understanding?

This is very unclear (in general and in an abstract)

 

Unclear statement in Line 23–25: A key conclusion of this study is the importance of developing strategies to increase social and ecological resilience, given the likelihood of highly disruptive impacts of accelerated climate change.

What is the conclusion? 

1) Is it to develop a strategy to increase resilience – basing it on some likelihood? How can that be? Explain.

2) A need to monitor early warning signs of climate change within high schools and school communities? Do you mean to identify early signs … ?

 

Is the last sentence your conclusion, “that climate services directed at young people could contribute to designing off a sustainable future”? If so, polish your sentence according to this one (here).

 

Line 30: How is involvement a key word (it is not emphasised in your abstract)?

 

Line 36: use present tense (understand) not past tense. Also, … and us being a part of it (not as a part of it).

 

Line 47: Rethink this question - it does not work. What are you asking? Is this your question: How far are climate services an appropriate method to work on the disconnect between young people and nature?

If not – the reviewer does not get what you are asking.

 

Line 60: are you referring to the whole world, or a particular place (your country)? Make sure to be humble and acknowledge you don’t have an overview of everything written in the world.

 

Line 64: Who are WE? So far in the paper you have not explained who you are, where you are and what place/location you are referring to.

 

Line 73: … compares … (include s)

 

Line 75: delete the two words “final conclusion” and have the word discussion in plural (discussions put)

 

Line 76: Here, you talk about experiment. That is not indicated in the abstract (that you were doing an experiment).

 

Line 96-97: What do you mean (by the read sentence). Explain this better.

Explain “traditional knowledge” and the explain your approach.

 

Line 129: Rewrite this question (in terms of English language sentence order).

 

Line 134: What focus group? How do you define focus group, how were they created, by whom and how was the procedure?

Line 133-134: How can a “more intimate mode” be a focus group? This shows how the sentence does not work.

 

Line 140: You “sought to evaluate the degree of success of 53 projects”. Is this one of the reserach questions (aims)?  This needs to be clarified in the introduction (and introduced in the abstract). 

 

Line 145-146: Is this the last sub-research question? If so, tell the reader. Earlier on you must explain to the reader that you have one overall aim, and the X number of sub-questions. 

 

Lines 157–159: This should be presented in the abstract (i.e. that the data is built on participation in three groups of countries; e.g. European, countries emerging countries and developed countries.

 

Line 188: …, in their own lives, OF the impact of climate change … (include OF in between).

 

Line 226: This demonstrates (better to use “indicates”). Don’t be to assertive – it seems you don’t have data to support such statements.

 

Line 234: … projects shows … (please use more humble statement and delete “shows” and include “indicates”)

 

Line 342–344: Bold statement. You need a reference to back this statement up. OR, you must say that in YOUR OPINION you think …

 

Lines 352–355: This conclusion of yours strongly indicate your lack of knowledge of educational research, particularly in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), Climate Change Education (CCE) and science education (existing for some decades).

You need to realise that this project does not really introduce a world changing approach, this is one way of trying to understand young people’s views and experiences around the world and compare them. The reviewer cannot see any RADICAL approaches being used here. Therefore, be more humble in your conclusions/statements.

 

Lines 355–356: This information about the participants should have been clearly introduced in the beginning (under privileged high school students from public schools). You also need to explain what it means to be under privileged.

Same counts for the researchers and associated teachers – who are they, what was their role?

 

Lines 377–379: Here, you present a question – what is the purpose of that?

What was the overall question/aim of this research (is this question in lines 377–378 the aim of this paper)? If not, the reviewer is very much lost in the aim, the purpose and the point of this paper.

 

 

Author Response

reviewer 2

This essay does not pretend to provide a blueprint for teaching about climate change, nor will it cover all the subjects that are or should be taught in a curriculum. We simply propose a framework for reading the central and fundamental issues that should be taken into account when dealing with the phenomena of climate change. In the future, the development of climate education will be based on an articulation between meanings that are often contradictory, fragmentary, fragmented, and even on an understanding of the complexity of the problems to be identified.

 

We approach the practices, attitudes and commitments of young people from the angle of cooperation and not from a moral vision of responsibility. Although our study does not directly address the environmental issue and its fundamentals, there is, however, a dialogical link between the treatment of the climate issue, the effects in terms of environments and the constitution of networks, particularly in the practices of action, i.e. the way in which culturally, socially distinct groups of young people develop relations with their environments, organise themselves and act to contribute to transformation.

 

This response below has been incorporated into the text, conclusion :

Finally, in the light of our results, we would like to propose a line of thought, part of the argument of which is borrowed from Michael H. Glantz's Climate Affairs (2003). We have seen that our project is based on three fundamental principles: reflexive knowledge, awareness-raising and the importance of socio-anthropology in the climate system. I start from the general idea that the socio-anthropological dimension of climate change needs to be completely rethought. We see that this dimension, i.e. the inclusion of human, cultural activities in geosphere-biosphere research programmes, is timidly gaining strength and is no longer considered as an afterthought by scientists. This fundamental component of understanding climate change was rarely considered during a final assessment. However, as we have seen in the results of our research, the inclusion of the socio-anthropological dimension, as a bio-anthropo-social factor, is becoming a preponderant factor, it is no longer possible to examine the climate dimension without this dimension and without the other dimensions (biological, political, etc). Although there are extremely sophisticated global warming scenario models, although there are increasingly sophisticated technological means to scrutinise our Earth, there are still a significant number of people who ignore or simply want to ignore the evidence of climate change. In fact, there are several ways of integrating a socio-anthropological dimension into climate problematisation. Some are tactical, others are strategic. On the tactical level, the socio-anthropological dimension can be taken into account in climate when it directly, visibly and to a large extent influences issues of societal change. On the other hand, a strategic focus on climate disruption leads to an overemphasis on the long-term climate change issue at the expense of the shorter-term socio-anthropological dimension. However, a multi-dimensional approach encompassing both tactical and strategic concerns in time and space integrates the socio-anthropological condition into the overall complex problem of global warming. We are in a world facing the difficulties of global thinking, which are the same as the difficulties of complex thinking

 

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have done a lot of work to improve the text. Comments have been taken into account, the text has become more logically presented and strengthened in a theoretical aspect.

 

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors seem to have made good use of the comments provided and have made the overall purpose and steps of the project much clearer. However, the link of the project to literature of Education for sustainable development, and Climate Change Education is not strong, and little effort is made to connect the learning gained to existing learning through research in the field.
Having said that, I do think the paper could be of use for others to read and thus recommend that the paper to be published.