Uneven solidarity: the school strikes for climate in global and intergenerational perspective

The school strikes for climate (henceforth, the school strikes) initiated by Greta Thunberg have brought young people’s environmental concerns to the global stage. However, there is a danger of considering youth environmental concerns only through the actions of highly mobilised young people who are heavily concentrated in the urban Global North. This article revisits qualitative data collected before the school strikes to consider how 11–14-year-olds in India and England interpreted and responded to environmental hazards and degradation in their everyday lives, and connected their situated experiences to narratives of global environmental crisis. The young people occupied a range of socio-economic positions and were experiencing different degrees of vulnerability to environmental hazards.