Our “Dramatic” Future? Climate Fiction Plays Performed by TWYCC and Asian Youths at COP27
TWYCC and Asian youth organizations initiated a climate fiction play project and performed the plays during UNFCCC COP27. By acting out how youths are imagining life in the future — the life that is heavily affected by impacts brought by climate change, they hope that the plays could prompt COP participants to think about the grave importance of taking ambitious climate actions at once.
TWYCC started its climate fiction (or cli-fi) project around 2019 (read more: Imagining Taiwan Underwater/Envisioning Our Net-Zero Future). Many stories and ideas have been co-created by the Cli-Fi project members, and multiple workshops have been held.
This year, the TWYCC Delegation to COP27 decided to extend the reach of the audience by showcasing a cli-fi project at COP, and also to expand the partnership of our cli-fi project by co-creating with climate youth organizations.
Starting around two weeks before the start of COP27, TWYCC invited members of Asia Youth Climate Networks (AYCN), including Climate Youth Japan (CYJ), Green Environmment Youth Korea (GEYK), CarbonCare Innolab, and China Youth Climate Action Network (CYCAN) to brainstorm ideas for the script of the cli-fi plays.
The story backgrounds of the plays are based on the SSP585 scenario from the sixth Assessment Report (AR6) issued by IPCC. The SSP585 scenario is a combined pathway of a fossil fuel-focused and a high GHG-emitting business-as-usual world (the combination of SSP5 and RCP8.5), in which the globe is 4.3 degrees Celsius warmer by the end of the century.
After the TWYCC members provided the fictional setting of the plays, the AYCN members divided the work to finalize the plots, the lines, the roles, and the cast. Finally, Asian youths from AYCN performed the plays together during COP27.
The plays include scenes on campus in the “Warming University,” where students challenge their teachers’ belief on the necessity of using fossil fuels for prosperous economic development, where students join a water skiing club due to floods in the future, and where students eagerly seek high-tech climate solution jobs at a career fair.
AYCN members not only strongly supported this cli-fi play initiative, but they also recognized how different awareness-raising approaches like climate fiction and theater plays could attract people’s attention to climate issues and inspire people to take action after thinking about future climate impacts.
Similarly, TWYCC members also find that fun and interactive methods like theater plays may be easier for public members to feel connected to climate issues. By including elements similar to real-life phenomena in the story-setting and plot development of plays, TWYCC expects to spark more discussions on climate-related issues and reflections on how different attitudes and actions are taken by different actors in society.
So… do you want to know what will happen at the “Warming University” in 2050?
If you’d like to follow our latest climate action activities, make sure to follow this TWYCC Medium page (in English) and our social media (mainly in Mandarin)!
- TWYCC Medium: Taiwan Youth Climate Coalition
- Facebook fanpage: 台灣青年氣候聯盟TWYCC(Taiwan Youth Climate Coalition)
- Instagam page: TWYCC (@rocktwycc)
Author: Ann Wu
Editor: Shun-Te Wang
Content adapted from the Mandarin Article "串聯亞洲青年氣候網絡 COP27上演科幻行動劇--AYCN行動劇紀錄"
(Connecting with AYCN Cli-FI Streetplay at COP27--The AYCN Streetplay Review)
written by Regina Chang and Leon Yang; edited by Jia-yi Lin.