The Global Youth Climate Training Programme (GYCT) is a free, fully online capacity-building programme that equips people aged 16-35 with the knowledge and confidence necessary to engage in international climate policy. Young people are increasingly being given a seat at the table in domestic and international climate policy, and therefore require appropriate capacity-building to ensure their interventions are cogent and relevant.
This project is a collaboration between the Global Youth Coalition (GYC), a coalition of climate youth changemakers, and researchers at the University of Oxford (Oxford Net Zero, Oxford Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment). The joint team delivering this project represents a strong international and intergenerational collaboration, spanning multiple continents, professional backgrounds and ages. We received 10,000 applications for our first iteration of the programme, demonstrating greater need for effective youth capacity building programmes.
2024 Programme
This year, with the generous support of the ClimateWorks Foundation, we are running our second iteration of the programme from 3 September-1 October 2024, with one final session on 1 November 2024. The whole course takes place online. The programme brochure for this year includes details such as the schedule, focus of this year’s course, and applicant criteria. It can be found here as a PDF and here as a Word version (if using a text-to-voice reader).
Applications are now OPEN at this link. Applications will be open until 10 August at 23:59 UTC. Applicants will be accepted on a rolling basis, with all decisions out by 23 August.
The time of the sessions will be decided based on the time zone most appropriate to our selected cohort, but sessions will be between 1-5pm UTC. This programme will be delivered fully online. Participants who are unable to join sessions live will have the recordings to watch within 5 days of the session. However, we will not record the interactive/workshop sessions.
Opportunity: COP29 bursary
Through the generous support of the ClimateWorks Foundation, we are delighted that this year we are able to offer 5 bursaries for admitted applicants in our 2024 training to attend COP29. This bursary of up to £3000 is to cover flights, accommodation, food and transport. We can unfortunately not support accreditation – this is primarily for applicants who have the ability to attend COP29 but face financial barriers.
Application process for the bursary:
- Apply for the 2024 Global Youth Climate Training Programme (link above and here)
- Accepted applicants will be directed to a secondary application form to express their interest in receiving a bursary to attend COP29.
- Applications will open during September and applicants will be informed of the success of their application by early October.
Application criteria for the bursary:
Since we are unable to support all applicants, first priority will be given to applicants representing diverse regions and groups most impacted by climate change.
Our Programme History
This programme was launched May 2023 to provide greater clarity on the negotiation tracks of the UNFCCC ahead of COP28. It brought together leading experts and young climate professionals and covered topics such as Climate Finance, Loss & Damage, Adaptation & Resilience and more.
Alexis McGivern, Oxford Net Zero Fellow, created and led the programme alongside several youth activists from the Global Youth Coalition, leveraging the University of Oxford’s wide network of climate experts.
The 2023 curriculum was built by consulting 180 young climate justice activists who gave their input on their training needs. We educated 4,500 activists under the age of 35 spreading over 177 countries, with 64% identifying as from Most Affected People and Areas (MAPA).
This youth training is trial of radical open-access and inclusion, with all of the recordings published to YouTube, a completely free course for participants. We also partnered with EcoInterpreters to offer the course in four languages: English, French, Spanish and Portuguese.
Several Oxford Net Zero researchers taught on the 2023 programme (including Dr. Myles Allen, Dr. Jose Maria Valenzuela, Dr. Tom Hale), alongside researchers and practitioners from around the world. The programme was intentionally crafted to prioritise expert Global South voices on climate issues. Each session began with a testimonial by a youth speaker, followed by a technical lecture by relevant global climate experts.
We have received wide recognition for our course, including being used as an example of best practice by the UN Youth Climate Champions team and winning the University of Oxford’s Vice Chancellor’s Awards for Environmental Sustainability.
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