Labour's Ed Miliband credits young climate strikers with finally waking up governments around the world.
Speaking to the Mirror’s NextGen project, the Shadow Climate and Net Zero Secretary hailed young people as the catalyst for change.
“There are people who are pushing for more ambition from government - climate strikers are doing it,” he says.
“There are so many different movements around pushing this agenda.
“I do think the climate strikers did have an impact on parents, governments, on political parties.
“Young people are going to push us politicians to go further, to go faster, that is really necessary.”
The latest IPCC report on climate change made for grim reading.
It warned how the window of opportunity for action is “brief and rapidly closing”.
And yet, Mr Miliband is optimistic - and determined - that change will happen.
“The IPCC report was the starkest warning yet about the dangers of us not acting, he says.
“It also tells us some pretty negative change is inevitable and the window is closing on action, but, it still says there is time to act and I think that is really important.
“I don’t think it’s simply a message of hopelessness - there is a message about what we can do, but we’ve got to get on with it and this is the decisive decade, these are the decisive years.”
The doomsday report brought little comfort to young people who are already feeling anxious about their future but Mr Miliband believes it’s vital politicians “are understanding” of this.
He says: “I understand why people feel anxious. What’s the best way of dealing with that anxiety?
“It’s to sense you’re doing something to try and make a difference. We can all do a bit to make a difference.
“We can take action that is required against the climate threat and in doing so we can also create a better world.
“If you think about the insulation issue, it’s a way to tackle fuel poverty.
“If you think about helping the steel industry, it’s about creating good jobs at decent wages. “It’s about changing the way we travel around - electric cars, public transport - to cut air pollution.
“There’s a positive hopeful agenda here as well as the absolutely essential truth telling we need and the absolute action we need against climate disaster.”
In what is already a dark time for humanity, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought home the message that a move away from fossil fuels is urgently needed.
Last week there were calls for Boris Johnson to delay the UK’s net zero 2050 target, but Mr Miliband says this is not the answer.
He says: “We definitely should not postpone or delay our targets, far from it. The crisis is a fossil fuel crisis.
“It’s an appalling international crisis caused by the aggression of Putin but the lesson as far as energy policy is concerned is that we have got to reduce our decency on fossil fuels.
“As long as we are dependent on fossil fuels, we are subject to prices in the international market.
“The message has got to be we go further and faster on the green transition.”
Under a Labour government, Mr Miliband says a new department of Climate Change and Net Zero would be created and involvement of young people would be vital.
“One of the things I am starting to think about is how to engage with young people and people in general, but particularly young people in the work of this new department,” he explains.
“We also need to find ways of engaging with young people locally, nationally, better than we do.”
The younger generations are the ones who will feel the most extreme effects of the climate crisis within their lifetime unless action is taken this decade.
But Mr Miliband says the current Tory government is not fit to lead this change.
He says: “The big thing is we will be all in for the zero carbon transition and we won’t be facing both ways.
“Take onshore wind, the cheapest source of power available, the government still has an effective moratorium on that through planning regulations.
“Actually if we’d carried on with onshore wind we’d be even less dependent on Russian imports of oil and gas. That makes no sense.
“Unless we invest at scale, we’re never going to make this green transition work in a way that meets the urgency or that is fair.
Let me give you a very clear example of that which is energy efficiency. We have some of the worst insulated homes in Europe. There are 18 million homes below EPC band C.
“If we insulated those homes we could cut our import dependence, we could cut bills, create jobs. Why’s it not happening?
“Because the government refuses to make the investment required.
“Labour has said we’d invest six billion a year to get that insulation done. We’ve got to take immediate steps to tackle the cost of living crisis.”
It is clear there is a mountain to climb against a ticking clock, but the former Labour leader is “determined” to bring about the change that is urgently needed.
He says: “I am determined. We’ve got to be determined. We do face a really, really daunting challenge. And all of the science is telling us how daunting it is. It’s absolutely surmountable.
“The limits are not technical, the limits are imagination and political will.
“And so the most important thing to have is determination that we’re not going to be diverted from this course, this course is absolutely fundamental for the future.”
He adds: “And [we need] to be convinced that we can create a better world for people as we tackle this crisis.
“Yes, we need to avoid the disaster of climate breakdown but we can create a better world as we do so as we take action to clean our environment, clean up our air, improve our transport and our homes.
“All those things can be better for people, it can be a better world.”
