A Common Fight Against Climate Change and Authoritarianism

Three people, three places on three different August days:

• 17 August 2017, Hong Kong: Joshua Wong is sentenced to six months imprisonment.
• 20 August 2018, Stockholm: Greta Thunberg begins her “school strike for the climate”.
• 02 August 2019, Moscow: Yegor Zhukov is arrested in his apartment.

They are people whose names are not particularly internationally known at that time. But they inspired people. They sparked social movements and triggered a dynamic. Joshua, 22 years old, is the head of the protest movement in Hong Kong. Greta, 17 years old, is an icon in the fight against climate change. Yegor Zhukov, 21 years old, is a symbolic figure of the Moscow protests.

What unites these young movements? The fight against lacking prospects, the struggle for a liveable, free future.

In Hong Kong, people are fighting against a Chinese ruling system that robs freedom — a system of digital total surveillance and an extradition law that would allow Beijing to arrest Hong Kong citizens and let them stew in some mainland dungeon.

In Moscow we have seen the biggest protest movement for “honest elections” in years. It is thanks to these people that the liberal opposition faction Yabloko has finally returned to the Moscow City Council.

And in many European cities schoolchildren are protesting for a future worth living, against climate change and the failure of adults to meet this challenge.

Authoritarianism and climate change do not offer bright prospects for the future. And it is difficult to negotiate with both. Lacking prospects is poison. It touches the inner human core. It robs freedom and meaning. Life can be many things, but not meaningless. For this very reason these movements are emancipatory in nature. And perhaps that is why they are so pronounced in youth. Young people fight for their freedom to lead a self-determined, meaningful life in a world worth living in. They are sacrificing their present for a better future.

It is Joshua Wong against Xi Jinping and his struggle for human rights. It is Yegor Zhukov against Putin and his struggle for free elections and a secure rule of law. It is Greta Thunberg…