Leo Chen
2025 Youth Climate Activism Award - Essay Entry
Leo is a 17 year old from British Columbia.
Youth are hereβand we're not waiting.
Photo of Leo Chen courtesy Art Of Our Community website.
I still recall printing out the first editions of Horizon Monthly on a printer borrowed from another person, past midnight, as my friends carefully hand-flipped pages for me. We envisioned disseminating words that had weightβvoices of youth to bring about change in climate, culture, and justice. Today, we've mailed over 4,000 copies, have spread out in 15+ chapters around the globe, and influenced over 240,000 young people. But as we printed with each page, I also had the contradiction within me: how do we sustain and create waste?
So we did something different.
Working around the clock with our team, weβve launched The Horizon Appβa digital platform to reduce our printing footprint while amplifying youth journalism on climate, equity, and sustainability. Weβre still in the demo phase, but already weβve opened opportunities for 70+ youth magazines and storytelling collectives around the world. These are students who never had a platformβand now, theyβre shaping the climate narrative themselves. (stay tuned for some images of the app)
And Iβm not stopping there.
Photo courtey @delusionaling IG
Image courtesy of @ypsforum IG
This year, I organized a side event for the UN ECOSOC Youth Forum on behalf of the Permanent Mission of Senegal to the UN. I addressed ambassadors, young delegates, and civil society leadersβnot as an expert, but as a young person who believes in young people. My message was uncomplicated: youth isn't the futureβwe are the now. We initiated the discussion on sustainable education, investment in youth leadership, and actionable climate policy. And this is only the beginning. Weβre already planning more eventsβmore spaces where youth can engage, lead, and be heard.
My inspiration? Migration. Leaving one environment and adapting to another made me realize that clean air, green parks, and security are luxuriesβnot certainties. I notice the difference in the communities I've traveled to and worked in. Where I reside now in BC, we are fortunate. And so, we bear the burden. To save our world for the next generation. To give others what we tend to take for granted.
To follow this mural project stay tuned on the Art of Our Community web page. Photo courtesy AOOC website.
I am motivated by the young people I work withβfrom RCMP youth advisors who address community safety, to young artists who paint murals that illustrate climate hope through the Art of Our Community Foundation. We generated $10,500 in one year for our initiatives. That was not fundraisingβit was fuel for young people's dreams.
This is hard work. But it's also rich in moments of brilliance: bookmarks printed out for libraries that cause argument; classrooms buzzing as young people debate green policy; the quiet satisfaction of a publication going live. It's those day-to-day actionsβsmall, incremental, and communalβthat change the climate narrative.
To all of you who are reading this: we're counting on you.
Not just to speak, but to do.
To build.
To be leaders.
The climate crisis is real, but so is the passion of the youth. I've seen itβhere in New York, in Vancouver, and in all the towns where a student stands up and says: we can do better.
β We're not asking for permission. We're building the futureβtogether.β
~Leo Chen
As part of the submissions application we asked participants to answer these 3 questions in addition to their essay or video.
What future goals do you have around your environmental and climate work, and do you have any future projects in mind?
One of my main goals is to build sustainable and creative spaces for youth to explore climate action through media, storytelling, and entrepreneurship. With Horizon Publications, weβre currently working on expanding our Global Special Edition, which highlights youth-led stories and solutions related to climate and sustainability. We plan to host community-organized fairs in Vancouver and New York to showcase this workβgathering student writers, artists, and local small business owners to share ideas on climate justice, green careers, and affordable education.
The goal is not just to raise awareness but to create channelsβlike mini internships, publishing phases, or small business boothsβwhere young people are actively involved in climate work. These fairs would also provide a platform to give the Special Edition to more individuals and make more young people participate.
Through Youth Publications and Socioeconomic Forum, I have attempted to bridge young people to UN arenas for policy action. Now, I want to bring those lessons back homeβinstitutionalizing community activities which are feasible, innovative, and guided by the realities of the young. Given we have access to funds, we might give stipends, printing capacity, and microgrants for young climate writersβsomething ongoing which builds one issue into an issue or beyond a single event.
If you could share one message of hope for your community, what would it be? Briefly explain why you would choose this message.
My message was simple: Youth is here.
I spoke these words at the ECOSOC Youth Forum and Civil Society Forum to ambassadors and UN dignitariesβnot as a slogan, but as a reminder. Young people are not lingering on the sidelines; we are leading, organizing, and creating. We are already changing the world through our art, businesses, activism, and care for community.
This message matters because it recognizes youth not just as future leaders, but as present leaders. It's a message that urges us to be brought to the table todayβin policy-making around climate change, in planning for sustainability, and in building a more just world.
I've seen firsthand how youth-led projectsβwhether in journalism, community arts, or activismβcan move the needle on climate justice. When you give us the space, we show up. We care. We innovate. We act. That's why I have so much confidence in this message.
Who or what inspires you to work on climate change?
I take my inspiration from migrationβtraveling between one world and another, and observing how unevenly clean air, safe water, and livable communities are distributed. Here I am, we're fortunate to have cleaner air and more infrastructure. That's a privilege I don't take for granted. It's also a responsibilityβto make it possible for others to have the same, and to leave it intact for those who come next.
Climate change affects people differently, often depending on where they are born. Iβve met youth at the United Nations and through my projects who live with flooding, wildfires, and pollution every day. Their stories fuel my work. Theyβre not just βVictims of Climate Changeββtheyβre organizers, artists, and innovators with solutions.
Iβm also inspired by the idealism of people like John Lennonβwho believed in a world that could exist, even if it doesnβt yet. That kind of vision keeps me going: imagining a planet that is fair, sustainable, and shared.
With every project that I arrangeβa youth forum or a magazineβI try to leave space for others to dream and act too. Because we don't need just awareness. We need hope along with action, and idealism based on real change.