Global identity: The mindset for climate success
It”s understandable to feel a connection with a place you call home, but what if 'home' is the planet?
4 minute read
The question, “Where are you from?” has historically been straightforward.
“I’m from Cardiff, in Wales,” is my default reply.
But where we are from is no longer tied merely to our postcode, the city we were born in, or the country listed on our passport.
Rather than focusing solely on where we are from, there is now more emphasis on where we belong, where we find connections, where we feel we have responsibility.
Being Welsh, I feel a strong emotional connection to my country’s flag – not least because it has a dragon on it. I feel I belong in Wales: It is my home. But I also have a strong identity as a citizen of the world.
A recent UNICEF-Gallup poll of 55 countries found that more young people identify as ‘global citizens’ than older people do. On average, 27 per cent of young people say they identify most with the world, in comparison to just 14 per cent of those aged 65 and over. Overall, the younger a person is, on average, the more likely they are to identify as a global citizen – that is, as someone who identifies most with the world as opposed to a nation or local area.
The corresponding report rightly points out that this is an inevitable result of globalisation and technology – we are, of course, now just a click or a swipe away from someone on the other side of the world. More than ever, at least for young people, our connection isn't rooted in our everyday environment; our understanding of place and space has vastly changed. For many of us, our digital home is of equal importance to our physical home.
This evolving mindset, this generational shift in identity, could be the key to the transformational change required to tackle climate change.
But I can’t help but think that this evolving mindset, this generational shift in identity, could be the key to the transformational change required to tackle climate change.
Let me explain.
One of five megatrends – that is, big forces that shape our future, those factors we are projecting will have intergenerational impact – is a shift in values. Other megatrends include climate change, demographic shifts, aspects of governance and technology, and economic trends.
The ‘values’ megatrend refers to a significant and long-lasting shift in societal values and beliefs that have a profound impact on various aspects of culture, the economy, politics, and social behaviours.
You may have seen this for yourselves, given a growing emphasis on sustainability, diversity and inclusion, and ethical consumerism. These changing values have influenced the way businesses operate, governments make decisions, and people live their lives. There’s a reason I have recycled toilet paper delivered to my home to reduce plastic waste and emissions: My values around my impact on the environment has changed, and society’s new expectations have put pressure on my personal behaviour, however trivial.
This emerging ‘global identity’ in itself is a significant change in societal values to the generations that have came before ours – but we are yet to see its significance.
Greater percentages of older older generations – whose contemporaries hold most leadership and power positions – identify in greater numbers with their city or local area or their country as opposed to the world.
This insular identity, the lack of global identity over decades, has led us to where we are today. Our disconnect between our individual home and our home on planet Earth means we continue to take actions that put profit before other people and the planet. That is why we continue to invest in fossil fuels and continue to benefit from products and practices that cause climate change, with little thought to the people who live on the far away islands we will lose to the rising sea.
It is understandable. If you feel a connection with a specific place you call home, you are going to make decisions that you think benefit it in the short term. Drilling for extra oil to sell off and temporarily boost your economy’s GDP feels perfectly acceptable if it benefits your home.
But what happens when your home means ‘the planet’? Once we can see this truth, maybe then we will see the connection between our burning of fossil fuels and the emergence of more forest fires.
What happens when those who feel the pull of global citizenship – those aged 15–25 now – go on to hold positions of power, make up the largest proportion of the workforce, and are the biggest contributors to the economy?
My hunch is that we will see a leap toward climate and globally conscious policy making and behaviours, way beyond the slow and lacklustre progress we are witnessing now.
When we start to see ourselves as part of something bigger... we will start to make decisions for our collective future – not our singular one.
When we start to see ourselves as part of something bigger, when we connect to the people of our global community as well as our local ones, we will start to make decisions for our collective future–not our singular one.
When we have leaders who understand the weight of their actions on the world, we will see global collaboration on climate change. When being globally responsible becomes the norm – which transcends political ‘left’ and ‘right’ – there will be urgent action to protect current and future generations. Hopefully, we will see the nations responsible for the biggest contributions to climate change begin to do their part at last.
Unfortunately, we do not the luxury of time. We cannot wait for these values shifts to come into play. For too long, we have counted on the next generation to deal with the issues our own generations have caused. But we cannot continue to delay the actions we need to take now to secure our future and that of future generations.
The sooner we understand that the world is where we all belong, the better. The world is our collective home, our collective responsibility.
Kate Seary, 26, is a UNICEF Youth Foresight Fellow 2023 and an advisor to the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales and supporting institutions on the implementation of the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act.
