There’s a moment I’ll never forget. I was 27, sitting at a round table on energy poverty. Recently appointed head of the National Energy Ombudsman Network. Everyone else around the table was over 40. All men. All engineers. I had done the homework. I knew the material. And yet, I remember wondering whether I should speak at all.
Being young in this sector is hard. Being a woman, even harder. You are visible, but not always taken seriously. You’re listened to, but often not really heard. That’s why I was honoured to be the first guest in my friend Anna Gumbau’s new podcast series She Owns the Stage, which supports women to find, and use, their voice in energy and climate spaces.
That memory came rushing back during my conversation with Federico Barbieri and Carlotta Ferri, the President and Vice President of the European Youth Energy Network (EYEN).
Their story begins with an invitation, and a closed door. In 2019, they were selected as youth delegates for the Clean Energy Ministerial. They travelled to Canada, full of energy (pun intended), only to discover that the actual decision-making rooms were off-limits. Youth had been invited, but not included.
They came back to Brussels, sat outside the European Commission, and started sketching ideas on post-its. It was a small act, but one that recognised a structural problem: young people weren’t just being left out of energy policy, there wasn’t even a system in place to engage them properly.
So they built one.
EYEN isn’t just a network. It’s a workaround.
They didn’t try to fix the existing system. They created their own structure. A federation of youth-led energy organisations across Europe (25 members and growing!) with no membership fees, no barriers to entry, and a shared mission: to make youth participation something more than a photo-op.
It’s become something closer to a think-and-do tank. EYEN runs the European Youth Energy Forum, publishes career guides, and is about to launch the first quantitative survey on youth energy poverty in Europe.
They’ve worked with DG ENER, IRENA, and others. But what matters isn’t who they work with — it’s how they’re shifting expectations. They’re not asking for permission. They’re not waiting to be invited. They’re designing their own spaces, then opening them up to others.
That’s the difference.
Youth participation still depends on individual exceptions
Carlotta shared a story from the Citizens’ Energy Forum. After her panel intervention, a high-level policymaker came up to her and said, “I’d never realised that young people don’t have the means to be active participants in the transition.”
Think about that.
Someone who has spent years working on energy policy hadn’t considered that youth might lack time, money, data, or credibility.
And it’s not unusual. These are the blind spots in the system, until someone makes them visible.
What EYEN does is exactly that. They make the gaps legible. They translate “participation” into something with actual teeth. They show what it takes to build a real bridge, not between generations, but between vision and infrastructure.
You can’t build the energy transition for people who aren’t in the room
This is where things get uncomfortable. Because a lot of people, maybe even well-meaning people, still treat youth engagement as a PR exercise.
They want someone under 30 on stage. But they don’t want to give them decision-making power. They’ll fund a youth event. But not the time it takes to prepare for it. They’ll ask for “the youth perspective” without recognising that there isn’t just one.
EYEN is doing something different. They’re not here to be heard. They’re here to contribute.
“We don’t just want to be included,” Federico told me. “We want to bring value.”
That line stuck. Because it’s not just about youth. It’s about every group that has historically been underrepresented in policymaking, and what happens when they finally decide to organise on their own terms.
Some questions I’m still sitting with
- What would it take for institutions to engage with young people without putting the burden of proof on them?
- Are we mistaking visibility for inclusion?
- Who gets to “co-create” policies, and who gets asked to react to them once they’re done?
🟡 “You are never too young to lead and never too old to learn.” That’s Kofi Annan. And it works both ways.
EYEN is teaching many of us, with our policymakers, funders, and advocates hats, how to listen better. How to share power, not just platforms. And how to get serious about the energy transition we claim to care about.
🎧 Listen to the episode, or watch the episode: Too Young to Wait: How EYEN Built a Seat at the Energy Table // https://youtu.be/qpuyyvF-rLQ?si=jM8_belfhtDi5u-M
📝 I’d love to hear how others are thinking about youth engagement. Or better yet, how you’re resourcing it.
