Energy & Climate
The power of youth
Lee Franklin, college campus coordinator at EARTHDAY.ORG, explains why youth-led movements are inspiring hope for the future.
5 June 2024
This article first appeared in our Earth Day 2026 issue of My Green Pod Magazine. Click here to subscribe to our digital edition and get each issue delivered straight to your inbox
Main image: EARTHDAY.ORG supporters at the INC-3 Plastics March in Nairobi, Kenya (2023). The march supported a demand for a 60% reduction in plastic production by 2040
There is a particular defiance in the air this spring.
EARTHDAY.ORG is tracking nearly 6,000 registered events in more than 180 countries: marches, rallies, teach-ins, cleanups and community gatherings that are being organised in direct response to the most consequential assault on environmental progress in a generation.
This is just a sample of the hundreds of thousands of events that will take place in communities – large and small – around the world.
In the United States alone, more than 425 actions have targeted environmental laws over the last 16 months, including executive orders that deny the reality of climate change plus sweeping regulatory rollbacks affecting air quality, clean water, public lands and climate policy. Internationally, several governments have weakened climate commitments and health and safety protections.
The global theme of Earth Day 2026, ‘Our Power, Our Planet’, was chosen as not only a rallying cry of optimism, but also as a statement of intent: the people will not be silent.
‘Right now, when so much of what two generations have created is under attack, the answer is not resignation – it is exactly this: show up, organise, and make yourself impossible to ignore’, said Kathleen Rogers, president of EARTHDAY.ORG. ‘Today we are risking our future by staking it on short -sighted policies and a fossil fuel economy that pollutes and plays a major role in worldwide instability.’
Denis Hayes, the organiser of the very first Earth Day in 1970 and now Board Chair Emeritus of EARTHDAY.ORG, drew an explicit parallel between the crisis that sparked that original movement and the one facing the world today. ‘It is easy to forget that all those years ago, in 1970, Earth Day was born from a genuine environmental and political crisis’, he said. ‘But we were confident that we were going to win, and we launched an environmental revolution. Today the challenges we face are at least as serious, but we are more determined than ever. Despite everything, it is still Earth Day and the world is demanding action.’
The scale of confirmed activity for Earth Day 2026 (22 April) is remarkable. Marches and rallies are already locked in across the United States – in Albany, Atlanta, Cleveland, Detroit, Miami, Philadelphia, Salt Lake City and Washington, D.C., as well as coalition actions spanning Raleigh/Durham, Charlotte, Winston-Salem/Greensboro, Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Lansing and beyond.
Faith communities are joining in, too: the National Faith + Climate Forum is bringing congregations together to act on climate as a community, and the National Religious Coalition on Creation Care is engaged at the federal level.
One of the most striking actions building towards 22 April is the Great Mother March, a 32-day, 500-mile pilgrimage beginning in Asheville, North Carolina, a community on the front lines of US climate disasters, and arriving in Washington, D.C. on Earth Day itself. It is a living demonstration of why community power sits at the heart of this year’s theme.
Internationally, major events are taking shape in Taipei, Nairobi and New Delhi, while Mumbai is emerging as a key hub. The city will host the Our Power, Our Planet Stars Awards on 22 April at the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre, gathering global leaders, innovators and artists. A Floating Maritime Climate Discovery Exhibition, developed with the Indian Coast Guard, will launch there before travelling to key coastal cities.
Now in its eighth year, EARTHDAY.ORG’s Great Global Cleanup has grown into one of the largest coordinated volunteer programmes on Earth. In 2025, an estimated 14.4 million volunteers across 187 to 191 countries collected approximately 156 million pounds of waste from communities, waterways and wild spaces.
This year’s effort is already building towards that scale, with cleanups registered across all 50 US states and in more than 180 countries.
This year’s flagship cleanups reflect the breadth of the movement. In Raleigh, North Carolina a partnership with The Great Raleigh Cleanup is putting wages and meals in the hands of people experiencing homelessness while removing litter from city streets.
In Philadelphia, a collaboration with Block by Block Philly is uniting residents in underserved neighbourhoods alongside advocacy to shut down the nation’s largest incinerator, located in nearby Chester, a predominantly Black community long burdened by toxic air pollution.
In Detroit, EARTHDAY.ORG and Detroit Hives continue transforming neglected lots into pollinator gardens. In Miami, volunteers return to Calle Ocho to tackle illegal dumping, while in Honolulu, scuba divers will remove pollution from the ocean floor at Ala Moana Park.
If the marches and cleanups represent Earth Day’s immediate power, its education network, now spanning 112 countries, marks its long game. The Earth Day Showcase 2026 is a project-based learning initiative, available in multiple languages and focused this year on community solutions to plastic pollution.
The breadth of reach is extraordinary: in Latin America, partner network Escolas pelo Clima is mobilising an estimated 450,000 to 600,000 students and up to 50,000 teachers in Brazil alone, with further reach through Peru’s national Ministry of Education.
This commitment to education is not merely symbolic. From the teach-ins that were part of the first Earth Day in 1970, EARTHDAY.ORG has consistently argued that informed citizens are the foundation of effective climate action, and that climate education must be universal. That goal is more urgent than ever in a world where scientific consensus is in jeopardy.
Climate weeks across multiple regions are converging around 22 April. Washington, D.C. Climate Week brings climate changemakers to the US capital, with EARTHDAY.ORG coordinating volunteer actions on Earth Day itself.
San Francisco Climate Week draws upwards of 30,000 participants to hundreds of events citywide. Colorado is launching its first-ever Colorado Climate Week on 30 March, kicking off Earth Month. In Europe, climate week activations are taking shape in Padova, Italy, among other cities.
What emerges from all of this activity is not a single march or a single message, but something more complex and durable: a global movement finding its footing in adversity. EARTHDAY.ORG was founded on the belief that ordinary people, when they choose to act together, can shift the course of history. The 56th Earth Day will test that belief more rigorously than almost any before it. The planet, and the movement, are asking you to be part of the answer.
Learn more and register for Earth Day 2026 events at earthday.org
Lee Franklin, college campus coordinator at EARTHDAY.ORG, explains why youth-led movements are inspiring hope for the future.
Bryce Coon, director of education at EARTHDAY.ORG, explains how a new form of literacy is helping to empower the next generation.
EARTHDAY.ORG’s Michael Karapetian & Evan Raskin explain why it’s time to clean up the plastics industry – and how you can help.
Kathleen Rogers, president of EARTHDAY.ORG, reveals how collective action can change the world.
