Scarlett Westbrook proves an individual can enact real change, no matter your age.
Scarlett Westbrook is one of Europe’s leading climate justice activists, having contributed to three British Parliament bills and organized multiple national climate strikes—and was only 17. There are many young adult milestones—getting your driver’s license, applying for college, going to prom—but Scarlett’s recent milestones look very different than these. Instead, she has passionately paved her own path, campaigning and organizing for climate issue awareness from a young age. But she is not alone. Westbrook is part of an extensive group of young people mobilizing to put climate issues in front of policymakers and global leaders. Confronted by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change prediction that global temperature will rise by 1.5 degrees Celsius within the next two decades, Westbrook, like so many of her peers, is terrified by the ever-worsening climate crisis and its catastrophic effects.
“I started engaging in climate activism because I couldn’t understand why no one was doing anything about this problem,” she shared with Mission. “It didn’t make sense to me that scientists were saying it would bring humanity to an existential crisis and we still weren’t doing anything about it. This drove me to act and the more and more I learned about climate policy, the more I realized that we had to take this into our own hands.”
At the age of 10, Westbrook was already attending marches and canvassing global elections (at the time, she was working to push Shadow Secretary of State for Climate Change Ed Miliband and his climate policies). As someone who grew up in inner-city Birmingham, Westbrook was surrounded by people often overlooked by politics. She spent her elementary school years serving and fundraising for causes that supported these underrepresented communities and delivered immediate results to alleviate financial and emotional burdens. And she credits these early initiatives to her two supportive parents. When she was younger, they often assisted her with her activism by accompanying her as she went campaigning throughout the neighborhood, knocking on strangers’ doors.
“I was surrounded by poverty growing up and because of that, it was a natural response to always fight against it,” Westbrook said. “I remember it was a year before the Paris Convention and our general elections. A few months before, I convinced my parents to let me leaflet for some party candidates.”
A few years later, she contributed to the English Climate Emergency Education Act, becoming the youngest policy writer in Europe—if not the world—to do this. Brought forward by Nadia Whittome, Britain’s youngest member of Parliament, the bill aims to push for broad climate education across the U.K. and to arm millions of students with knowledge about how to end the climate emergency and ecological crisis. A new survey she cites reveals that two-thirds of teachers believe climate change is not taught adequately in schools. Westbrook’s responsibility was to lead and organize a parliamentary reception for more than 100 members of Parliament. She and her peers’ efforts ultimately paid off and the bill secured cross-party support. But that was not the only first Westbrook has accomplished. When she was 13, she distinguished herself by becoming the youngest person ever to pass their A-level in government and politics. It was no small feat in itself, but all the more impressive when you learn that she taught it all to herself in seven months.
“I think all of this work has been because I wanted to stop the climate crisis.”
Now Westbrook heads up Teach the Future, a student-led organization that promotes “future literacy” and helps students take more initiative in their world. Founded by Joe Brindle, a friend of Westbrook’s, the organization prepares the next generation with the tools and skills needed to navigate the uncertain world. For the organization, Westbrook, who specializes in climate and education, spearheads the transformation of the British education system, aiming to place the environment at its center. Part of her climate mission also includes her work with the U.K. Student Climate Network (UKSCN), of which she is a volunteer campaigner and spokesperson. Here, she focuses on Green New Deal policy and organizing climate strikes across multiple schools.
“I think all of this work has been because I wanted to stop the climate crisis or at least abate as many impacts of it as possible,” she explained. “We still haven’t had a big legislative success, but if it does pass, it would completely revolutionize climate policy throughout the world.”
“Black and brown communities are more likely to die of air pollution, and so all this work aims to try to make things as equitable and just as possible.”
In addition to all these initiatives, she is also an established journalist, having contributed to many notable publications including i-D, Metro, and The Independent (for which she has been a writer since she was 14). She believes that climate education is as essential as the policy behind it. With every article she writes, she tries to make the nitty-gritty science statistics digestible to her readers—who, she considers, might be younger students looking to understand what it all means for them and their future. Her articles frequently emphasize the shocking figures that reveal corporate responsibility: “Most of the blame lies with the smallest amount of people, yet they try to tell you the opposite. One hundred companies are responsible for 71 percent of emissions.” And with this corporate emphasis, Westbrook is also passionate about the intersections between inequality and climate change, exploring how racial justice and gender are entwined with climate justice.
“Black and brown communities are more likely to die of air pollution, and so all this work aims to try to make things as equitable and just as possible,” she elaborated over Zoom.
Westbrook is strikingly modest about her achievements, sharing that she does not want to distract from the issues at hand. Yet they are not something that has gone overlooked. Over the past few years she has garnered multiple awards from prestigious institutions, including winning the Diana Award and being crowned the Women of the Future Young Star in 2020.
Despite all these accomplishments and progress, when asked if Westbrook was interested in a career in politics after university, she laughed and said, “Absolutely not.” Westbrook is currently applying to medical school, aiming to become a humanitarian trauma surgeon working in natural disaster–affected areas and helping people at the forefront of these issues. With this kind of work, she aims to help the people most impacted by climate change, specifically those who will have to rebuild their homes and face the physical effects of the climate crisis.
“It takes years to see even the smallest amount of change. The structures are so archaic that you can’t really change anything, to an extent.”
“I think that’s the most useful application of my skills,” she elaborated. “It will also have immediate effects, which I like about medicine. With policy, for example, it takes years to see even the smallest amount of change. The structures are so archaic that you can’t really change anything, to an extent.”
Regardless of her career choice, she assures Mission that climate issues and policy change will always be a part of her identity. Now more than ever, Westbrook is looking to create a more just and sustainable future. She believes climate action with strong community support is the most effective way forward, adding, “Everybody’s going to be impacted by the climate crisis regardless of vocation or age, so we all need to work together.”
Image courtesy of Oscar Blair. This story first appreaed in Mission’s Sustainability Issue.
