Barbados Youth Lag in Green Economy Awareness Despite Climate Resilience Focus

Professor Devonish suggested that Dominica’s stronger performance may be linked not only to its greater exposure to climate-related disasters, but also to the government’s response.

“It’s not necessarily the impacts are differentiated, in the sense that Dominica had greater exposure to natural disasters, so it would naturally follow that young people will be more intimately engaged relative to Barbadians. It is also how Dominica’s government is responding because think about it, by virtue of being more exposed, the government now is a little bit more aggressive and a little bit more consistent in terms of the types of programmes that they’re adopting.”

He acknowledged that while there are a lot of climate investments and technology there is less buy-in due to a disconnect in youth involvement.

“Typically, you will see experts, subject matter, specialists carrying out these particular projects, but you’re not seeing that kind of cascading effect or domino effect down to the young person. So I think that’s where we have to make that bridge between investment and of course, young people’s engagement and interests.”

The frequency and consistency of such programmes have helped generate greater engagement across society, including among young people, he said.

UNICEF social and behaviour change specialist Dr Lisa McClean-Trotman said the agency plans to support governments in developing social and behaviour change strategies in response to the findings:

“This strategy, of course, as the study said, it has to go beyond awareness. It has to go towards what the structural barriers are that need to be addressed if you want to ensure that young people become involved in climate action and climate behaviours. In addition to that, we’re hoping to be able to support governments to move forward in terms of what practically they can do.”

Dr McClean-Trotman acknowledged that the findings for Barbados were somewhat surprising, but cautioned against interpreting them as a sign that young people are disengaged.

“It might not be that Barbadian young people are not aware, are not interested. It might be how we may use the word green economy, but they may understand recycling, and we may use the word circular economy, but they may understand it as something else. So I think it’s a matter of how we have been selling climate change, how we have been selling these particular concepts.”

She added: “I think that we need to use terms that young people understand, use the examples they understand. You find this could be perceived as a little surprising, yet not surprising because I think that young people in Barbados are engaging and they are conscious of some of the issues.”

While Barbados has done a good job raising awareness about climate issues, the findings suggest there is a need to adjust how those messages are delivered to younger audiences, Dr McClean-Trotman said.

“We need to pivot a little to make certain that we use language that young people understand, terms and concepts that they can relate to, and that they understand.”

(LG)