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Elevating Meaningful Youth Engagement for Climate Action is a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report that emphasizes the vital role of young people in addressing the climate crisis. The report defines "meaningful youth participation" as a comprehensive mechanism where young people share power with adults to influence climate governance, focusing on policy, politics, and polity. It highlights that youth are not merely participants but agents of change, and their engagement should be institutionalized, inclusive, and address systemic barriers.

The report outlines five key attributes of meaningful participation: agency roles youth perform, the dimensions of governance they influence, the level of governance, the stage of decision-making, and stakeholder interaction. It provides 16 indicators to assess the meaningfulness of youth participation, ranging from process-based (e.g., shared power and institutionalization) to outcome-based (e.g., transparency and positive impacts on youth wellbeing and climate action).

Key recommendations include institutionalizing youth participation mechanisms, ensuring inclusive procedures to capture diverse youth perspectives, addressing structural inequalities, providing access to knowledge and financial resources, and promoting intersectionality. The report calls for youth to be involved in all stages of National Determined Contributions (NDCs) and climate governance cycles, from design to monitoring.

The report concludes that meaningful youth participation is crucial for both climate ambition and justice, and that institutionalizing youth-led mechanisms like youth councils, advisory groups, and climate litigation is essential. It emphasizes the need for binding participation processes and transparency to ensure youth inputs lead to tangible outcomes. The implementation-oriented recommendations target policymakers, UN agencies, civil society, and youth themselves.