Six cities, ten days: field notes from the COP31 Youth Climate Champion's Türkiye programme

From 10 to 19 September 2026, COP31 Presidency Youth Climate Champion Sally Higgins travelled through six Turkish cities ahead of the climate summit in Antalya. Civic Space Media served as communications consultant for the visit: alongside field photo and video production, we ran media monitoring, press relations and communications coordination with the institutions in the programme. In this post we follow the programme city by city and share how communications work during an international delegation's visit, and what we learned.

Who is the Youth Climate Champion?

The Youth Climate Champion is the COP Presidency's bridge to young people. The role is to listen to young people's views on climate policy and carry them into the negotiating process. For COP31 the role is held by Sally Higgins, a mixed farmer from Queensland, Australia, who works on climate adaptation in agriculture. The visit to Türkiye was planned to meet young people, farmers and local institutions directly on the road to the summit.

Before we set off: preparation

We started at the desk before the field. We prepared a digital media analysis by reviewing Sally's own social media accounts, those of other youth climate representatives, and accounts that set a benchmark for climate communication in Türkiye. A content approach came out of it: the series was named "Field Notes from Türkiye", and Sally's voice would come mostly through voice-over and natural walk-and-talk, with direct-to-camera pieces the exception.

We also did a small but important piece of work: a title guide. Terms such as "Youth Climate Champion", "Climate Envoy" and "climate activist" easily get mixed up in the Turkish press. We prepared a Turkish and English terminology list so the official title would appear the same way in every text, and shared it with host institutions.

Trabzon: oceans, tea gardens and women's work (10–12 September)

The journey began with the Blue Dialogue youth session at the Oceans and Seas Summit. Beyond the summit, the strongest moments came from the field: in Of we talked about changing seasons with Arzu, who has harvested tea for years; at the Trabzon Women's Life and Employment Centre we heard how women weaving rope from corn husks contribute to the local economy; and at Sümela we met Türkiye's youth climate envoys.

Trabzon is also where we set the principle for the whole job: the narrative would be hope-based, but the hope would come from people rather than footage. We did not hide loss, but every story of loss came with someone already doing something about it. We used no disaster language, no alarm graphics and no stock disaster footage.

Ankara: from campus to COP31 (13–14 September)

Ankara was the institutional core of the programme. At Hacettepe University's "From Campus to COP31" meeting, proposals from the Youth Climate Lab run with UNFPA were presented to Sally. The "COPilot the Future" Youth Summit at METU brought together more than 400 young people, researchers and policymakers. Separate sessions were held with UN Türkiye and UN Women Türkiye. Toni Soalablai, a Pacific Islands delegate from Palau, joined the delegation from Ankara onwards.

In Ankara the most effective communications tool was Instagram's Collab feature. Co-publishing content with UN agencies, universities and the Australian Embassy in Türkiye carried it far beyond what a single account could reach. So for every post we identified the day's partner institutions in advance and prepared tag and Collab suggestions together with the caption.

Konya: "time to stop talking and start acting" (15 September)

In Konya, a day trip by train from Ankara, the Metropolitan Municipality hosted "From Konya to COP31: Climate Action with Young People". Sally's line there, "We are at a point where we have to stop talking and start acting", became one of the most quoted of the visit. The same day included the Kapsül Technology Platform and the Bahri Dağdaş International Agricultural Research Institute, which works on drought and climate adaptation.

Konya also showed us the power of local press: the host municipality's press release turned into dozens of local and national news items via the agencies. The lesson for civil society organisations is clear: planning the press release in advance with the local host decides how far the story travels.

Gaziantep: with young people at the science centre (16 September)

In Gaziantep the Metropolitan Municipality hosted "From Gaziantep to COP31: Climate Action with Young People" at the Müzeyyen Erkul Gaziantep Science Centre. Driven by young people's questions, the session explored how young people can take part in climate policy.

Şanlıurfa: from the cotton field to the digital youth centre (17 September)

Şanlıurfa was a busy stop that produced three separate stories in one day. Metropolitan Mayor Mehmet Kasım Gülpınar welcomed the delegation together with UNDP and the GAP Regional Development Administration. Then came a field meeting with farmers producing cotton with less water and fertiliser under the Good Cotton project. The last stop was the Esentepe Digital Youth Centre: robotics and coding workshops, young people's projects and a Q&A with the Youth Council.

In Şanlıurfa, Sally's own farming background moved to the centre of the story. Talking to cotton growers as a fellow farmer, she was described in the local press as "Youth Climate Champion and farmer". When a representative's personal story meets their mandate, the narrative becomes much stronger.

İstanbul: children's voices (18 September)

The final stop was İstanbul. At the Zero Waste Foundation headquarters, at a meeting convened by UNICEF Türkiye with the Ministry of Family and Social Services, children and young people from provincial child rights committees shared their views on climate. Sally's message was clear: children and young people must not just be in the room, they must help shape the decisions.

Behind the camera: the communications process

While we filmed in the field, the other strands of communications were running in the background. Throughout the visit we scanned Turkish and English news coverage, social media posts and comments every day, and reported to the communications team twice daily, morning and evening. The reports tracked which story ran where, which quotes stood out, whether the official title was used correctly, and any comments that needed attention. Before each city we also prepared a short context note on the day's programme, hosts and potentially sensitive topics.

Our daily production rhythm was simple but intense: filming through the day, editing in the evening, delivery after 18:00. We shot everything in landscape and cut vertical versions in the edit, so the same footage worked in both the daily videos and the route video covering the whole journey. We kept subtitles in English, because two languages in one frame do not read comfortably on a phone and the account's audience is mostly English-speaking.

What we learned

Human stories beat the podium: the most-watched content of the visit was not official speeches but videos about a place and its people. Collaborative posts are the strongest distribution tool, so plan Collabs with partner institutions from the start. A local press release makes a difference, so agree a press plan with the host before the visit. And a consistent title pulls a scattered news flow together.

What should we take to Antalya?

We closed the route video with one of Sally's questions: "What should I take to Antalya from you?" That question sums up the job for us too. The real work of climate communication is not to make visible the person who will sit at the decision table, but the people whose voices should reach it.

All posts from the visit can be seen on the @youthclimatechampion_cop Instagram account. Our thanks to the COP31 Presidency Youth Climate Champion team we worked with, to the institutions that hosted us, and to everyone who agreed to step in front of our camera.