The elections that have just concluded in the United States saw record voter turnout in a country that traditionally registers modest numbers at the polls. This year it was young people who made the difference. According to an analysis by the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (Circle) on votes recorded up to 18 November, between 52 and 55 per cent of the eligible voting population aged 18 to 29 went to the polls this year, marking a substantial increase compared to 2016 figures, which stood at around 43 per cent. These votes can reasonably be assumed to have gone to president-elect Joe Biden and the Democratic congressional candidates. Environmental and climate issues may have played an important role in the choices of this segment of the population. And there are several groups and organisations that deserve credit for having succeeded in bringing new voters — concerned about their own future and that of the planet — to the polls.

The Sunrise Movement thinks about voters

At the forefront is the Sunrise Movement, a youth political action group focused on climate change which, starting from the summer, carried out awareness campaigns ahead of the vote, reaching around 3.5 million voters. Mariana Sanchez, a young organiser of the movement in the Tacoma area near Seattle, recounts that in the weeks leading up to the election, she and her local group made over one hundred thousand phone calls, providing information about the voting process and explaining the most pressing local issues: "We sent press releases, letters to newspapers, and organised meetings on Zoom and demonstrations in the local area. Sometimes young people's votes are rejected because first-time voters are not familiar with the procedure and perhaps don't send their ballot in on time or make other mistakes. We assisted them to avoid these problems. We also helped voters who don't speak English and who perhaps had never voted before and weren't clear on the system."

At the local level, the group was supporting the Democratic candidate for the House of Representatives, Beth Doglio, who however did not manage to win. "Even though we ultimately lost," Sanchez said, "we managed to involve a lot of people, and the measure of our success is how many people we mobilised. Many kept coming back week after week and taking part in activities, building community. And that is something that remains even now, after the elections." Environmental issues represented a fundamental part of the campaign carried out by Sunrise, whose model is based on local organisation and support for candidates in individual districts. "In the case of Beth Doglio, she is an activist. Her political background demonstrates her commitment to the environment, and I believe this drew many young people closer. Many young people voting for the first time 'felt the call'. They felt they had to cast their vote. Not only because they reject Trump, but because of the urgency of climate change: science tells us we now have only ten years, and so even the two years for which the House of Representatives delegates serve make a difference."

During the primaries to choose the Democratic presidential candidate, the movement had initially backed Bernie Sanders, who for years has managed to capture the attention of younger people with a positioning decidedly further to the left than the rest of the Democratic Party. And who supports the Green New Deal, opposed by the Republicans. However, when the nomination then went to Biden, Sunrise focused its energies on the effort to prevent a second Trump presidency, which would have been disastrous for the climate. Known for a substantially climate-denialist stance, Donald Trump, as president, among other things ordered the United States' withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, significantly cut funding to the Environmental Protection Agency, granted permits for the extraction of oil and coal, and raised the maximum permitted emissions limits for power plants.

Joe Biden wins over young people by talking about the climate

Initially Biden, who is 78 years old and has spent most of his life in politics, was not particularly popular among the younger generations. Over the months, however, the Democratic candidate managed to bring issues close to their hearts back to the centre of the campaign, such as, indeed, the climate. In a series of interviews in the weeks preceding the election, as well as during the debates with Trump, Biden repeatedly declared that climate change is an existential threat and that it would be the number one issue on his political agenda should he be elected. The candidate drew up an ambitious action plan worth two trillion dollars to tackle climate change and managed to bring other central figures within the Democratic Party on board, thus offering hope that intentions would be followed by action.

Now the movement's concern is that the president-elect will choose for his administration figures capable of supporting this transition towards a greener economy. "There are some really capable progressives who represent our values and whom we trust to push Biden in the right direction if placed in key positions such as the Departments of Labour and the Interior. Furthermore, an economic stimulus plan is now urgently needed, and in it we would like to see measures supporting environmental initiatives. The fact that there is a crisis does not mean we have to keep funding sectors that harm the environment."

Sunrise's criteria for selecting appointments

Both at the local and national level, the Sunrise Movement has called on those elected to honour their commitments. And it launched the Climate Mandate, an appeal directed at the new administration for the creation of a new White House office for climate mobilisation. Also within the Climate Mandate, it then set out the key criteria that president-elect Biden should meet in selecting the most senior appointments in his administration, offering specific recommendations for twelve cabinet posts and other crucial roles.

Among these, Sunrise would like to see the congresswoman of Native American descent Deb Haaland as Secretary of the Interior, senator and former Democratic primary candidate Elizabeth Warren as Secretary of the Treasury, Senator Bernie Sanders as Secretary of Labor, economist Joseph Stiglitz as director of the National Economic Council, and environmental activist Mustafa Santiago Ali at the head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Varshini Prakash, executive director of the Sunrise Movement and adviser to the Biden-Sanders climate policy task force, stressed in a press release that "young people helped deliver this historic majority to Joe Biden. The Senate is not an excuse: regardless of whether Mitch McConnell remains majority leader, we need a climate mobilisation office and visionary people in the Biden administration who are ready to use every tool at their disposal to create millions of well-paid jobs in the green sectors." The latest reports, however, point to different choices on Biden's part. For the Treasury, for example, he chose the far more moderate Janet Yellen, former chair of the Federal Reserve (the US central bank).

Not just Sunrise fighting for the climate

The Sunrise Movement is not the only group that has managed to shift votes on climate issues. Many have mobilised against a president who set the country back enormously. #Vote4OurFuture, for example, is a joint campaign by Zero Hour and National Children's Campaign aimed at boosting voter turnout among young people and anyone who cares about the future of the new generations, on the basis of environmental issues and climate justice. "We engaged young people who were already old enough to vote, but mainly children below voting age who mobilised voters to vote on their behalf. We pushed parents, grandparents, teachers, paediatricians and anyone who cared about young people to vote in their name," the campaign's press office explained to us.

NextGen America, an organisation created by billionaire Tom Steyer — who had briefly taken part in the race for the Democratic nomination on the basis of environmental issues — donated 45 million dollars to the Biden campaign directed at youth mobilisation. And Greta Thunberg also had her say: resharing a Scientific American article encouraging people to vote for science, the activist tweeted an unusual message of support for Biden, explaining that these American elections went far beyond politics. A message that did not go unnoticed by her millions of followers, who now expect to see a clear change of direction compared to the Trump administration.