ABSTRACT
Fighting the climate crisis is important to many people, but they tend to attend protests less often than the hard core. Significantly more politically engaged than their predecessors, Gen Z has contributed greatly to this development, in particular through the impact of Fridays for Future. Others in the same young generation want to see the climate crisis at the top of the agenda, supporting the Green Party and campaigning with Fridays for Future for more tolerance, a stronger European Union and sustainable agriculture. Obviously, populist attitudes develop among those who fear becoming the losers of tomorrow. This diffuse fear of downward mobility in a volatile society characterised by rapid economic and technological change points to why poor young people from disadvantaged backgrounds but also some comparatively well-off young people from the lower middle class can hold right-wing populist views.
