Australian Youth Climate Coalition

$40,000 | April 2022

 

AYCC members on election day 2022

 

What do AYCC do?

The Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) is building a generation-wide movement of young people leading solutions to the climate crisis. We organise, train and educate young people to take action on climate, driving strategic campaigns to change the narrative and shift decision-makers towards a 100% clean energy future.

Why is this work important?

This Federal election period brings heightened public engagement on national policy issues, as well as greater engagement from MPs and candidates with the concerns of their local constituents. This creates a powerful opportunity for community organising, storytelling, and strategic campaigning to increase pressure on all parties and shift the politics on climate change.

15% of Australians aged 18-24 are not enrolled to vote and a Foundations for Tomorrow survey shows that the majority of young people don’t think the Federal Government is doing enough on climate, with almost 75% indicating they would vote for parties taking bold climate action.

This election presents a significant opportunity to mobilise young people as a voting constituency, and send a powerful message about the need for strong action on climate. AYCC will drive a national community movement to increase pressure on all parties, and secure meaningful commitments to climate and energy policy.

Following the Federal election, we will likely face either a fourth term Liberal government, or a first term ALP government, in power for the first time in nearly a decade. This is a vital time to be building or consolidating relationships with MPs and demonstrating mass support for climate action for local communities.

How is Groundswell supporting this work?

With Groundswell’s support, AYCC’s campaign strategy is as follows:

1. Youth Voter Empowerment: Ahead of the Federal election and through the first 100 days of government, AYCC is empowering young people to vote for climate. We will engage new audiences online, creating ads and climate scorecards in multiple languages to engage diverse communities on importance of climate action. We are training young people to hold persuasive conversations about climate change in their communities, sharing stories and building intergenerational support for meaningful action on climate.

2. Reverse Leaders Forum: In April AYCC will host a Reverse Leaders Forum, bringing together leaders from each major party to hear from young people on the issues impacting us most. The leaders of all major parties will be invited to attend, listen and respond, and to commit to engage young people in tackling these issues after the election. We will host this event alongside other youth and media organisations, amplifying our stories to the widest possible audience. We will create political pressure for the major parties to respond to our demands, and ensure that the interests of young people are represented at the highest level.

3. Growing The Movement: In the first 100 days following the election, we will translate widespread support for climate among young people to deep and ongoing engagement with the climate movement. We will upskill volunteer leaders, seed new local groups, and train young people to keep the pressure on our MPs and tell their stories in the media.

Grant update

Young people were especially powerful this election, with record youth enrolment, powerful conversations with voters across the country and forcing the climate crisis into the public spotlight.

In the lead up to the election, AYCC:

  • Held persuasive conversations with over 2,00 voters in communities - everywhere from Launceston, to Wollongong, to Cairns;

  • Supported an estimated 7,000 young people to check their enrolment or get enrolled to vote for the first time;

  • Reached over 700,000 people on social media with information on the parties’ stances on climate action and youth enrolment support; 

  • Reached up to 48 million people through 120 media hits, including major stories in Pedestrian, The Age & Sydney Morning Herald, RN breakfast, local radio and more

  • And on election day itself, AYCC volunteers, together with School Strike 4 Climate, distributed over 13,500 climate policy scorecards to voters at 113 polling booths. Volunteers were out in force across key seats including Kooyong, Brisbane, Leichhardt, Bass, Macquarie, Reid, Boothby and many more! 

Post election, AYCC are jumping head-first into work to put climate justice and the concerns of young people on the agenda for the first 100 days of the new government. This will include MP engagement across the country, stunts and actions to attract media attention, and engaging key Ministers within the new government. They will work with organisations across the climate movement to demand the new Federal government commits publicly to no new public money for fossil fuel projects; then focus on ensuring the phase-out of existing subsidies, grants and tax breaks.