The ICPS Climate Policy Competition
is over.
Our first-ever international Climate Policy Competition, which saw participation from over 200 young people from across the world, is now over. We are incredibly grateful to everyone who participated, as well as our high-level jury. Read more about the winning proposals on the links below:
Thank you to all participants!
The ICPS Team
We look forward to bringing your ideas one step closer to reality in the weeks to come, and collaborating with all of you in our mission to reshape international climate policy.
Submit your best climate policy idea. Win $500 and make it a reality.
Are you passionate about finding solutions to the climate crisis? Do you want to make a real impact on the future of our planet?
Then the ICPS Climate Policy Competition is for you!
We know that the climate is changing. We know that it is destroying the livelihoods and futures of millions of youth across the world. We know that we are not the ones who have caused it. But we believe that YOUth have the solutions to solve it – and to shape a better world. 🌎
Submit your climate policy solution, have it reviewed by senior experts and earn a chance of winning $500 USD to make your proposal a reality! Sign up here.
The Institute for Climate Policy Solutions is a completely new global youth think-tank aiming to provide real and scalable policy solutions to the climate crisis. We want to bend the emissions curve down by bridging the gap between youth and policymakers.
With this inaugural Climate Policy Competition, our aim is to:
- Showcase and publicize the best youth-led climate policy proposals, to scale them up and move them closer towards implementation.
- Inspire and build capacity among young climate advocates on the importance and considerations of solution-oriented climate policies.
Over the next few weeks, you’ll have the opportunity to research, develop, and present your own climate policy proposal. You’ll be challenged to think critically, creatively, and collaboratively as you develop your own policy brief to tackle one of the most pressing issues of our time. Submission deadline is 21 February, 2023.
Why should I participate?
The top three best climate policy proposals will receive their share of a total $1000 USD in prize money, and extensive support through the ICPS network to help make the policy a reality. Selected participants will be invited to officially publish their policy with the ICPS and become part of the first cohort of ICPS Climate Policy Shapers, and all participants will receive a personal Certificate of Participation.
- Overall winner: $ 500 USD
- Second place: $ 300 USD
- Third place: $ 200 USD
- Selected participants: Honorary mentions and the opportunity to officially publish their policy brief through the ICPS
- All participants: Certificate of Participation
Who can participate?
The competition is open for ALL young people aged 30 years and below.
You can submit as an individual or collaborate as part of a team. You can be a 15 year old individual from Canada or a group of three university students from different parts of the world collaborating in a team. We all have our different strengths, weaknesses and perspectives. Therefore, this is as much about collaboration as it is about competition.
We can only accept policy proposals in English.
Judging Criteria
The jury will be scoring each climate policy proposal from 1-10 according to five assessment criteria:
- Emissions Reductions Potential: To stop climate change, we need to reduce emissions at a massive scale. Today, the world emits about 50 billion tonnes (Gt CO2e) each year. This needs to urgently be halved by 2030 to keep the world below an ever more dangerous 1.5°C warming. Proposals will therefore be judged by their ability to reduce greenhouse emissions at scale, including their potential to be scaled up in other communities, countries or jurisdictions.
- Fairness: For a climate policy to be truly effective, it should be equitable. This means that it should consider and address the various impacts of the policy on different groups of people and preferably be designed in a way that it will benefit the most vulnerable and disadvantaged members of society.
- Feasibility: A solution-oriented climate policy should ideally be feasible. This means that it should be realistic to implement, given the current political, economic, and social context. Try asking yourself: Is this something we could put in place tomorrow?
- Innovative: How new is your idea? Does your proposal take an innovative perspective and drives climate policy forward? What could this policy lead to in the long-term, if it is implemented?
- Language and structure: Whilst our main goal of the competition is to reward young minds who can come up with the best new climate policy solutions, an inevitable part of assessing a policy brief will be looking at the language and structure of your proposal. Please find the guide and example below to help you.
By keeping these criteria in mind, you’ll be well on your way to creating a policy proposal that can truly make a difference in the fight against climate change!
Announcing The Jury
We are incredibly excited to share that your submissions to the ICPS Climate Policy Competition will be scored by a high-level jury of leading climate advocates, experts and policymakers from across the world!
Read more about them on the links to our Instagram below:
- Mitzi Jonelle Tan, Youth Advocates for Climate Action Philippines
- Nigel Topping, fmr United Nations High-level Climate Champion for COP26, UK
- MacDonald Munyoro, National Association of Youth Organizations, Zimbabwe
- María Cecilia Quaglino, Climate Save Movement, Youth Climate Negotiator, Argentina
- Jamie Bindon, Enhancement Knowledge Specialist, NDC Partnership
- Eric Njuguna, Fridays For Future Kenya
- Mikael Karlsson, Professor Climate Change Leadership, Uppsala University
- Omnia El Omrani, COP27 Youth Envoy, Egypt
The Jury will score your submissions and decide on the winners of the competition based on the criteria outlined above. To read more about the individual jury members and their extraordinary achievements, check out our Instagram!
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Submission Deadline ⌛
Writing a Strong Proposal
Proposals should focus on concrete, solution-oriented policies that can help us address climate change at scale. It could be anything from a carbon tax in your country, an innovative return system for reusable bottles, a new mechanism to finance climate projects or a structure for youth-led climate councils.
Proposed Structure
To help you keep your proposal focused, we would recommend you to use the following structure:
- Brief Summary of the idea
- The Problem it tries to solve
- The Proposal for solving it
- Potential Results and impacts from implementing the policy (keep the above criteria in mind)
You are highly encouraged to include graphs, statistics, and/or projections to support your arguments.
Rules for Submission
> Your submission may be received in any document format – a PDF, Word document, or Google Document. In the case of Google Docs, any edits after the deadline will not be taken into consideration. The deadline is 21 February, 2023.
> Policy proposals must be original, in the sense that they should not simply be copied text from previous publications. You are of course free to reference, quote and build upon other work that has been done, but any such references should be cited. This can be done through traditional academic styles such as Oxford (footnotes) or Harvard (in-text) citations, or simply by including a link to your original source.
> To us, it’s not your ability to write perfectly correct citations that matter the most – it is your ability to come with transformative and solution-oriented climate policy proposals that can help us shape a better future.
Word Count
> Policy proposals should be in the form of short briefs with a maximum word limit of 1 400 words (approximately 2 pages in 11pt Times New Roman).
Citations and footnotes are not included in the word count limit.
Are you ready to get started?
Sign up to participate!
Sign up through the form below to receive additional guidance, resources and invitations to capacity building sessions throughout the competition. Signing up in advance is not required and does not mean you need to submit a proposal, but it will allow you to get access to our climate policy resources, ask us questions and stay one step ahead in the competition!
We also encourage you to follow us on our Instagram and LinkedIn to receive the latest news!
SUBMISSION IS CLOSED.
Deadline 21 February.
By submitting your proposal through the e-mail above, you agree to your proposal possibly being published on our website, if selected.
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