On 20 August 2018, a young girl rode her bike to the Swedish Parliament and sat down on the cobblestones outside with her placard reading ‘School Strike’. Without knowing it, Greta Thunberg had launched a revolution. 

Since then, youth climate strikes have spread worldwide and the rise of youth activism has been a geo-political game-changer. With the right to vote for 16-year olds being a key demand of student Climate Strikers in the United Kingdom, how can young people’s voice and calls for climate action be reflected in politics? 

Across the world, youth climate strikers have taken to the streets on Fridays, giving rise to the #FridaysForFuture movement, with young people marching to centres of political power such as Parliament Square in the heart of London.

In the United Kingdom, however, Members of the House of Commons are typically not in Parliament on Fridays, but at their constituency surgeries, as Fridays are traditionally reserved for constituency business. Mindful of this–and the need to connect student activism with political and civic education– in 2019, the legislators network GLOBE International, initiated the first ever Student-MP Climate Surgery in London. This first effort took place on Friday 5 July 2019 during London Climate Action Week 2019. This was the start of an annual effort to put a practical spin on #FridaysForFuture and support democracy in action.

There are 75 Members of  Parliament in London. One in nine of every UK member of parliament is a London MP. This is the largest concentration for any region in the UK – and a severely under- leveraged resource for climate action. Our Student-MP Climate Surgeries  seek to change this and act as a  test bed for effective youth civic engagement in similar democratic  settings beyond London. 

The Objectives of the surgeries are:

• improve awareness of the role of MPs in addressing climate change as part of student’s  broader political and citizenship education.
• improve MPs understanding of the concerns and demands of young people on the climate and nature emergencies.
• promote more responsive politics and catalyse practical collaborative cross-party action on climate change by MPs, accelerating solutions and producing positive outcomes for London and beyond.