IKI projects at the LCOY 2025
At the Local Conference of Youth (LCOY) 2025 in Lüneburg, two IKI projects presented concepts for youth participation in climate policy and fun approaches to environmental education.
Young people are particularly hard hit by the impacts of climate change and the biodiversity crisis. This is the reason why they are committed worldwide to ensuring a fair and sustainable future. Since 2009, the Youth NGO (YOUNGO) – the official youth representation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – has organised the annual Conference of Youth (COY).
The COY has national offshoots, the so-called ‘Local Conferences of Youth’ - or LCOY for short. At the LCOYs, young people meet to develop ideas for a more sustainable world. Each LCOY collects results and passes them on to the COY.
Since 2021, the International Climate Initiative (IKI) has been represented at Germany’s annual LCOY, where it offers presentations and workshops.
Political involvement through own political strategies
This year, the IKI-funded project “ARCH – Action for Regional Climate Help” showed how young people can actively shape climate policy. Until the middle of 2025, it supported youth organisations in Sudan and Egypt in effectively engaging in climate change mitigation. Nada El Atreby from the project implementing organisation Crisis Simulation for Peace e. V. (CRISP) reported that both project management training and the development of political strategies represented a significant part of the project activities. ARCH also brought young people and decision-makers together to enable exchange.
During the session at the LCOY, El Atreby explained how young people can develop political strategies if they want to become involved in politics. For this purpose, she presented a “simple formula” for writing policy recommendations on the basis of four questions:
- Who should take action?
- What should be achieved?
- When should the goal be achieved?
- Why is the measure important?
El Atreby finally presented successful examples from the project in both countries. In Egypt, a policy paper was written to find solutions for the incineration of sugar cane residues; in Sudan, a paper on reforestation and sustainable agriculture was prepared.
An Exit game about climate change
In a second presentation, the IKI “Escape Climate Change Brazil” project showed how games can be used to interactively introduce pupils to climate action and biodiversity conservation.
Michael Greif from the Ecomove organisation presented the game “Mission Climate – Youth in Action”. This is an Exit game for young people based on the topic of climate change in Brazil. The playful approach is intended to teach pupils more about climate change, social justice and discrimination. Together with two local partner organisations, the game was put to the test in 19 Brazilian schools in 2025.
At the end of the session, Michael Greif also showed the participants the prototype of the game. The exit game case contains a miniature toolbox that pupils can use to decipher the riddles of climate crises. The tools include, for example, a world map with secret scriptures and messages that are received on smartphone. “Fake news” about climate change and how to identify such news is also addressed. Only as a team can the young people solve the riddles and thus win the battle against climate change.
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