Youth involvement at Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week shows why climate pessimism is tempting, and why it is the wrong conclusion

Scroll through global headlines and it is easy to conclude that sustainability has lost momentum. Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) is questioned more openly than it was a few years ago. Reporting requirements in some jurisdictions have been softened. Political attention has shifted elsewhere. For many young people, this creates a sense of fatigue, or worse, the feeling that climate action is quietly being deprioritised.

That reading is understandable, but it is incomplete. While parts of the global conversation have stalled, the centre of gravity is shifting toward execution. Nowhere is this clearer than in the UAE, where the focus has moved decisively from setting ambition to embedding systems, laws, skills, and accountability. This is precisely why youth engagement matters more now than during the era of pledges and declarations.

Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week (ADSW), and particularly the Youth for Sustainability Forum and Hub, reflects this shift. The value of bringing thousands of young people together is not symbolic. It is practical. The next phase of the sustainability transition will be shaped by those who understand how policy, technology, finance, and behaviour intersect in the real world, and who can translate that understanding into delivery.

At NYU Abu Dhabi, we see what meaningful participation looks like when it is treated as a design principle, not a side activity. For several years, our students have joined delegations to global climate talks, including COP. They have been in roundtables, workshops, and discussions that show how negotiations work, and where progress gets stuck. They learn quickly that climate action is not a slogan. It is process, trade-offs, and persistence. They also contribute at home, through sustainability committee participation, campus initiatives, and projects with external partners. The most encouraging sign is that they keep asking for more: more engagement, more opportunities, more ways to get involved. That appetite is the opposite of apathy.

The UAE’s focus on delivery is also being reinforced through regulation. Federal Decree Law No. 11 of 2024 establishes a national framework that strengthens expectations around climate action, including emissions reporting obligations. The principle is simple: you cannot manage what you do not measure. Better data, collected consistently across organizations, is what enables credible sector pathways, reveals where incentives are missing, and shows which interventions are delivering real reductions at speed.

This is where education becomes climate infrastructure. Universities sit at a unique intersection. They educate future decision-makers, but they also operate complex systems today. Campuses consume energy and water, manage food supply chains, oversee transport, procure goods, and generate waste. In other words, they resemble small cities. That makes them ideal testbeds for sustainability in practice.

Collaboration matters for the same reason. Climate progress accelerates when institutions act as an ecosystem rather than as isolated actors. The UAE Universities Climate Network, initiated by NYU Abu Dhabi around COP28 and now a total of 35 institutions, is a clear example. When universities share learnings, align objectives, and build joint programmes, capacity grows faster. That is good for students, and it is good for the wider economy.

Research also plays a critical role, especially research focused on regional realities. Climate solutions must work in specific contexts, and the Gulf has unique environmental conditions that deserve dedicated study. Research centres such as the Mubadala ACCESS Programme bring together academic capability and public-sector partnership to deepen understanding of climate and environmental dynamics in the region, and to help translate science into usable insights.

Beyond the UAE, partnerships like Aim for Scale show how this model extends globally. By combining academic research, government leadership, and philanthropic capital from the Gates Foundation, the initiative is delivering AI-driven weather forecasts to farmers in low and middle income countries, with the practical goal of improving yields and livelihoods. It is a reminder that climate action is not only about reducing harm. It is also about enabling resilience and opportunity.

Yes, the global mood has shifted. But the youth have not given up. We have technology. We have solutions. There is enough finance in the system to move faster if incentives and implementation capacity catch up. The pathway is also wide. Climate progress is not limited to environmental science or engineering. Lawyers shape environmental compliance. Economists and finance professionals build transition mechanisms. Procurement specialists influence supply chains. Designers and technologists reduce waste and improve efficiency. Communicators keep the public conversation grounded in reality, not despair.

ADSW is a useful moment to reinforce that outlook. This year, NYU Abu Dhabi will contribute through research-driven engagement and public-facing learning, including ocean education and scientific research, and the UAE debut of the OceanX portal.

In a noisy and sometimes discouraging global environment, pessimism can feel like realism. But the execution phase of sustainability is where outcomes are decided. For young people engaging with ADSW, the most useful mindset is not despair or blind optimism. It is practical ambition, backed by the willingness to learn how systems change, how data drives decisions, and how progress is built one improvement at a time.

Antonios Vouloudis is Senior Director of Sustainability and Environmental Stewardship, NYU Abu Dhabi