Striking young people have understood the climate crisis better than many of the politicians who are supposed to solve it. In this guest commentary, Reinhard Steurer, climate policy expert at BOKU Wien, explains why more scientists than many people realise are supporting activists in the climate crisis.

I'm sometimes asked why, as a professor, I support climate activists, call for participation in the global climate strike, and take part in it myself. I'd like to explain this with a few personal and professional insights into my research on climate policy.

Most scientists working on a problem do so not only out of a desire for knowledge, but also because they want to contribute to solving it. Engineers want to build cleaner cars and better batteries, medical researchers want to cure cancer and other diseases, virologists want not only to understand the SARS coronavirus but also to prevent or combat a pandemic. For some time now, every research application has had to clearly explain how a research project is relevant to society — in other words, how it helps solve a problem. Without this relevance, you've got virtually no chance of securing funding. The same goes for those researching the climate crisis. Whether climate or social scientists, we all know that the climate crisis will end catastrophically if we don't change the political framework conditions in ways that rapidly put a stop to climate pollution. The question is how that can be achieved.

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