3rd Regional YCDF Conference

“Securing Our Future: Youth Diplomacy Across Water, Fire, Earth & Wind”

The Youth Climate Diplomacy Forum for Southeast Europe (YCDF) has, since 2023, built a strong regional network empowering youth to engage with decision-makers on climate diplomacy.

The 2026 Regional Conference -the third in this series- marks a transformative milestone: shifting from youth participation as engagement to youth participation as institutional representation.

In today’s rapidly evolving geopolitical and environmental landscape, climate change is no longer “just” an ecological issue - it is a security challenge touching every dimension of human life.

To communicate this in an accessible yet powerful way, the conference adopts the symbolic lens of the four elements:

·       Water: rising seas, floods, and cross-border water tensions affecting human security

·       Fire: heatwaves, wildfires, energy crises, and destabilising economic pressures

·       Earth: degradation, food insecurity, resource scarcity, and forced displacement

·       Wind: storms, infrastructure disruption, and the spread of climate-linked instability

These elements mirror the multiple fronts on which climate change reshapes security, diplomacy, and regional cooperation. As Europe faces growing geopolitical pressures, integrating youth into formal climate diplomacy frameworks - national delegations, EU consultations, and COP processes- becomes both a democratic imperative and a strategic stabilising force.

The 3rd Regional YCDF Conference will serve as a regional platform to define concrete pathways for embedding youth voices structurally within governance and security-related climate diplomacy.