On the 13th November 2025, the Climate Action Tracker (CAT), one of the world’s most respected independent watchdogs for global emissions and policy reality, released a report warning that for the 4th consecutive year, there has been little to no measurable progress on lowering warming projections. The CAT, whose research measures the world’s warming trajectory, underlines that the world’s median warming pathway under current policies and actions remains on track for 2.6°C of warming. Nonetheless, the same report underlines the importance of the Paris Agreement for having shifted the warming trajectory from 3.6°C to 2.6°C.

While global governance frameworks have thus far failed to fully live up to their own commitment towards a 1.5°C target from the top down, bottom up action remains a fundamental necessity in the drive to maintain a stable, habitable and equitable world. It is in this context that we understand the role of youth activism within the theoretical framework of Elinor Ostrom, whose work on polycentric governance demonstrates that durable climate action emerges not from a single centralised authority imposing solutions from above, but on the engagement of many actors operating at different levels.

Elinor Ostrom was a Nobel Prize-winning political economist best known for overturning the idea that shared resources inevitably collapse, showing instead that communities can successfully govern the commons through cooperation, trust, and locally crafted institutions. Her approach towards governance of the commons has evolved to include understanding different domains as commons, including the climate, given that the atmosphere can easily be understood as a shared resource from which everyone benefits. The complexity around governing the atmosphere is ultimately comparable to its importance, given that life on Earth depends upon it, and it is a context within which we all operate.

While grand in scale, the challenge posed by climate change is not unique in nature, if understood as a social dilemma or collective action problem. A social dilemma may be understood as a situation where a person’s short-term self-interest conflicts with the long-term interests of the group. In this type of situation, individuals can achieve the best personal outcome by acting selfishly, but if everyone acts selfishly, the collective result is worse for all involved compared to a situation where everyone cooperates. The dilemma lies in the conflict between taking advantage of the group for personal gain versus cooperating for a better collective outcome. 

These dilemmas lie at the heart of effectively governing common-pool resources, which may be defined as resources which are rivalrous, in that one person’s use comes at the expense of someone else’s ability to enjoy that resource fully. By definition, these resources are also non-excludable, in that it is difficult or costly to prevent people from using them. Examples include fisheries, forests or aquifers, and the problem is evident in overfishing, deforestation or overextraction of groundwater, as even when regulated, it is easy for rogue actors to exploit them. 

Such resource challenges may all be understood in the context of game theory, particularly via the Prisoner’s Dilemma. The Prisoner’s Dilemma is a thought experiment whereby one imagines two criminals are caught after a joint crime and are held in separate cells, unable to communicate with one another. They are told by the Police that if they rat on their accomplice, they will be given a reduced sentence. However, if they remain silent, and their accomplice rats on them instead, they will be punished severely while their accomplice gets off lightly. In this thought experiment, the optimal outcome for the prisoners would be to both remain silent. However, given the risks of staying quiet and being betrayed are so high, according to game theory, the prisoners will end up betraying each other, and both will suffer as a result. In other words, the Prisoner’s Dilemma is a situation where two actors would both benefit from cooperating, but each has a strong incentive to defect, leading to a worse outcome for both. Climate politics mirrors this trap, as every country knows collective action is essential, yet short-term self-interest keeps pushing them toward choices that sabotage the common good. On a grand scale, these little thought experiments emerge as social dilemmas, where individuals in society make little selfish choices, leading to a worse outcome for themselves and for everyone else in the big picture. It is for this reason that in showcasing case studies where societies had learned to govern common-pool resources successfully, one of the fundamental principles was building shared trust. It is through earned trust that individuals are able to collaborate towards sustainable use of resources.

With this theoretical underpinning out of the way, it becomes possible to examine events such as COP 30 in that light. With the objective of achieving a deeper analysis, one must look to the dire challenge faced by President Lula in Brazil’s attempts to limit deforestation of the Amazon Rainforest. President Lula does not control enough seats in the Brazilian National Congress to once again veto a historically devastating environmental bill that would gut Brazil’s environmental regulatory framework. Coming just after COP 30 held in Brazil, it represents a clear example of how global climate governance does not only depend on what is debated or promised on the highest levels, but also on bottom up political action and consensus.

This is where Elinor Ostrom’s theoretical framework evolves to address climate governance. Ostrom’s publication of Polycentric Governance of Complex Economic Systems recognises that large-scale social dilemmas cannot only be governed from the top, but require coordinated action on multiple governance levels. As she writes in her paper Ostrom defines “polycentric” as “connoting many centers of decision making that are formally independent of each other”. It is the construction of trust and consensus between actors on different levels, and building a shared understanding that they will work to mutually benefit one another, which ultimately allows for social dilemmas to be avoided or resolved. 

In the context of climate change, Ostrom published A Polycentric Approach for Coping with Climate Change, where she recalls the familiar slogan “Think Globally but Act Locally”. She claims that “to solve climate change in the long run, the day-to-day activities of individuals, families, firms, communities, and governments at multiple levels – particularly those in the more developed world – will need to change substantially”. She points out policy recommended on an international level by national governments is often based on an idea that the benefits of fighting climate change are predominantly felt on a global level, rather than looking at benefits experienced by communities from installing solar and achieving energy independence, to use a simplistic but tangible example. Ostrom states that “the advantage of a polycentric approach is that it encourages experimental efforts at multiple levels, as well as the development of methods for assessing the benefits and costs of particular strategies adopted in one type of ecosystem and comparing these with results obtained in other ecosystems”.

Returning to youth activism, in particular YES-Europe’s efforts on renewable energy, one can understand its contribution as a polycentric one, given that it mobilises youth activists operating on multiple levels of governance, from its delegations to COP annually, to producing policy on a European-level while further mobilising youth on national units of organisation. In of itself, YES-Europe therefore stands as a case study and best practice example for climate action. Tackling the climate crisis can no longer depend on global governance frameworks. As Ostrom states, “waiting for a single worldwide “solution” to emerge from global negotiations” is problematic, and “single policies adopted only at a global scale are unlikely to generate sufficient trust among citizens and firms so that collective action can take place in a comprehensive and transparent manner that will effectively reduce global warming”. It will take further activism and action on multiple nested levels of governance to drive effective change.