What was Youth Decide?

Between September 14 and 21, 2009, tens of thousands of young Australians voted for the world they want to inherit in Youth Decide '09.

The Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) and World Vision Australia partnered to hold a national youth vote on climate change: Youth Decide ’09. We wanted to give 4.8 million young Australians the opportunity to have their voice heard on climate change and on government action that will shape our future.

We crunched the numbers, and the vote results was shared with Australia’s government leaders and were taken to the United Nations during Climate Week in New York in September and then to Copenhagen in December, 2009.

The results

37,432 young Australians around the nation voted in Youth Decide.

An overwhelming 97.5 % of young people voted for emissions targets stronger than those currently proposed by the government at the time of the vote.

You were faced with three different futures, and this is what you chose:

• 34,267 (91.5%) voted for World 3 (40% + emissions reductions)
• 2,225 (5.9%) voted for World 2 (25 - 40% emissions reductions)
• 940 (2.5%) voted for World 1 (4 - 24% emissions reductions)

Why a national youth vote on climate change?

Australia's young people can be a voice for their generation: both here in Australia and for those poor countries and communities around the world who will be most affected by climate change.

A united youth voice will help compel the Australian government to lead the way in securing a strong global agreement.

Youth Decide worked with leading Australian Climate Scientists to best summarise each likely scenario for the various emission reduction targets governments are proposing. KPMG performed a diagnostic over the Youth Decide online voting application and post vote process to identify issues over the integrity and completeness of voting data.

Over the week, over 330 local voting events have been held in high schools, Universities, TAFEs, libraries, parks and even beaches around Australia. A team of 2,000 volunteers helped organise these events.

Almost 5,000 attended a concert in the middle of voting week in Melbourne’s Federation Square with The Cat Empire, Blue King Brown, Mat from the Beautiful Girls and Kisschasy. All of your support has helped make Youth Decide one of the biggest per capita mobilisations of young people on climate change anywhere in the world

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