How Gen Z Activist Xiye Bastida Became Voice Of The Climate Crisis

Forbes

After watching a polluted river flood her central Mexican hometown of San Pedro Tultepec, Xiye Bastida, the daughter of two climate activists, became one herself. Organizing her first climate strike at 16, she has become a leading Gen Z voice on the topic—speaking at the United Nations, climate change summits and universities including Harvard and Columbia. She doesn’t just give speeches. In 2020, she cofounded the Re-Earth Initiative, which she says has raised over $3.4 million from supporters the 776 Foundation, Waverley Street Foundation and Diane Von Furstenberg. The New York–based nonprofit gives grants of up to $15,000 to youth-led climate organizations across the globe. “I don’t think it’s fair that the youth who are building the world for tomorrow are so under-resourced,” Bastida says. In 2024, she distributed around $1 million to startups, youth summits and climate documentaries.  Read the full story on Forbes:   Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00Doing things more sustainably and more environmentally friendly,

00:02it shouldn't be annoying to you.

00:04And I think that's the perception.

00:05It should be empowering.

00:07It should be beautiful.

00:17Shia Bastida, thank you so much for joining me.

00:20Thank you so much for having me.

00:21I'm so excited to chat with you.

00:23You have been on stages all over the world,

00:27communicating the urgency of the climate crisis,

00:30and you've really become such a powerful voice in this movement.

00:33But how did you get here?

00:35How did you sort of find your calling as an activist?

00:40That's such an interesting question, because I think

00:43when you care about something so deeply,

00:45you cannot really trace the first time you cared.

00:49But a big part of it, I will say, is that my parents,

00:52when they were in their 20s, met at the first ever Earth Summit of the UN

00:56in 1992.

00:57So my parents were activists, you know, when they were my age.

01:02And they kept seeing each other at conferences, at climate conferences,

01:06and fell in love and decided that, you know, they were going to start a family.

01:10So I grew up in that environment of parents who were very, very involved in climate,

01:14but nobody else around me was.

01:16So it was a really weird dynamic.

01:19It's like living with parents who are astrophysicists.

01:22Like, nobody really knows what they do or what they're about.

01:26And you kind of talk about the terms, but it doesn't hit because it just seems so far away.

01:32And that all changed when I was 13 years old and my hometown flooded.

01:35I'm from a small hometown in Mexico called San Pedro Tultepec.

01:39And in 2015, we had the worst flood that my town had ever seen.

01:44That changed me because it showed me that the climate crisis was here,

01:47that it was affecting our communities, my people.

01:50And it wasn't just the rain, it was the fact that our river overflowed,

01:53which is one of the most polluted rivers in Mexico.

01:56And that combination of pollution and a climate impact with the fact that our town,

02:01because it's so small, doesn't get all the support it needs,

02:04is what we call the perfect storm.

02:07All of these intersections of injustice that ended up exposing me to

02:12just this deep feeling of unfairness, that that wasn't okay.

02:16And I also hated the question, what do you want to do when you grow up?

02:20Because I always thought, why do I have to grow up to do something?

02:23And that's why I decided to become an activist at such a young age.

02:27The turning point was when I spoke at the UN for the first time at 15,

02:30and I spoke about this experience. And adults were shocked to see a young kid just being expressive

02:37and outspoken and talking about, asking, why aren't you teaching us about this?

02:42We are heading to a world that is so different than what it is today,

02:45and we are not being educated for that world.

02:49When they listened to me, I realized that we have to be part of this movement as young people.

02:55Absolutely. How does a 15-year-old get in front of the UN and talk about the climate crisis?

03:01How does that happen? How did you get your foot in the door?

03:03That's a good question. So my parents had been in the UN space for a really, really long time.

03:10And my dad always speaks about indigenous rights in that space.

03:14One time he was invited to speak at this UN Habitat event in Malaysia and he couldn't go,

03:21so he told the organizers that I, as his daughter, could be a voice also for my community.

03:27And they, I don't know if they thought it twice, but they invited me.

03:31And so I crossed the world from New York to Malaysia by myself at 15.

03:36And I think it was a really important moment for me because it showed me that

03:39my parents believed in me, first of all, and having people believe in you is such an important part

03:45of the belief you have in yourself. It also showed me that I was capable of doing things like these.

03:50And it showed me that I could have a voice if I, you know, if you have people who you think won't

03:58listen to you. Sometimes it is really about just speaking up. And that's how it happened.

04:03And they invited me to speak several times after that. So it gave me a lot of empowerment.

04:08Yeah. Educate me. What is happening in the world right now that we should all be aware of?

04:15The climate crisis is, I mean, I don't even know where to begin, right? It's the worst crisis that

04:21humanity has ever faced. We are right now at 1.3 degrees of warming above pre-industrial levels,

04:28which means that we have released a lot of emissions into the atmosphere that are causing

04:32our world to heat up. That causes weather to speed up, extreme weather events, stronger hurricanes,

04:38stronger wildfires. Everything that we're seeing in the news today is caused because of this warmer world.

04:45We are now heading to a world that by the end of the century in 2100 is going to be 3 to 4 degrees

04:51above pre-industrial levels. So when our grandkids are our age, they are going to live the decisions that we

04:57make today, which is, I don't think that's really being internalized by our policymakers, by just our

05:04institutions in general. And when the world is at that heat, if, because I don't want it to get there,

05:11right? If the world gets to that amount of heat, we have coral die-offs, we have shifting rain patterns,

05:17we could have a collapse of the AMOC, which is the current that makes it so that Europe is not frozen.

05:24Right now, all of the warmth of the equator goes to Europe. If that collapses, they will be as cold as

05:29Canada because they're in the same latitude, right? And like, we know that because we see it in a map,

05:34but then we never asked, why is Europe so livable and we can go there and have a summer, you know?

05:39So it is just a very different world. And I'm actually part of this group called the Planetary

05:44Guardians. And we are ambassadors of something called the Planetary Boundary Science. The Planetary

05:49Boundaries are nine sets of measurements to see how the health of the planet is doing.

05:55And we have breached seven of the nine planetary boundaries. We just announced last week that we

06:00reached the ocean acidification boundary, which means that our ocean is more acidic than ever.

06:05And that causes corals to bleach, things like that. When you're in these rooms with these

06:11policymakers and you're communicating this, you know, as a young person, do you feel that they're

06:15taking you seriously? Or is that a challenge? It is a challenge. I think they tokenize us a lot.

06:22And that happens to everybody who's young, right? It's not unique to climate activists or activists.

06:29There's this, I think, this checkbox that they have. If we invite one young person, then we're doing our

06:34job. But that's not where meaningful engagement comes from. I understood that very early on, that just

06:39being invited to speak somewhere doesn't mean that things are going to change. We need to be in the

06:44advisory boards. We need to be in the boards. We need to be in the rooms where complex conversations

06:50aren't being had, because they usually have us to speak at people in big stages, and then we're gone.

06:58And they might be shocked. Maybe something changed. Maybe we touched them. But is that going to ensure

07:04that we have policy written that is different? I don't think so. So that's why lately, as I developed

07:09in my activism and I went from being a high school student who did climate strikes to somebody who

07:14runs an international nonprofit, I decided that part of our training is going to be to teach youth how

07:22to be in these spaces of power. And we're not invited how to build our own. Tell me more about the Re-Earth

07:28initiative. What all are you doing there? So Re-Earth started about five years ago. And I would say we were,

07:34became a real organization maybe two years ago, because that's when we started getting funding. And the funding

07:39for youth environmental space is so stark. I mean, just for youth in general, it's hard for us to

07:46access resources, but we are in the largest wealth transfer in history. So I'm hoping that that is

07:50going to change. Youth get around 0.96% of all environmental funding, which is only 2% of all

07:59philanthropic funding. So of 100% of philanthropy, environment gets two, and we get less than 1% of

08:07that 2%. It's like tiny, tiny, tiny amount. And we want to bridge that gap. Okay. Because we don't

08:15think it's fair that the youth who are building the world for tomorrow are so under-resourced,

08:21and there's such a big lack of capacity building. So what we do is something called the Re-Granting

08:26Program. And we have given grants to over 75 grants to over 60 grantee partners from all over the world,

08:33especially youth in the Global South, in frontline communities who are solutions-oriented. I think the

08:40time for striking was needed. We were all there in the street in 2019, but now we are not in high

08:45school. We're in college. We're young professionals. We have to start building our world. So that's where

08:50I'm focused on. How do we build the world by believing in people? As people believe in me,

08:55I want to be a believer too. And so we have now dispersed. We're in a second cycle of Re-Granting,

09:02and it's been incredible to see what happens when you believe in someone.

09:06And what are these, you know, as you're Re-Granting, what is the money going to? What kinds of

09:12initiatives or programs are these other members of the youth putting the money towards?

09:18So for example, we have one project that we support called Grown in Haiti,

09:23and it's a young person who is teaching his community about regenerative agriculture in Haiti.

09:29And when we started with Re-Granting, they were able to build a whole institution, a whole school

09:36to train hundreds of youth. And so it's that catalytic funding. It's the thing that unlocks

09:41the potential. We fund another organization called Latinas por el Clima, Latinas por Climate.

09:47And they do, they represent young women in Latin America in international decision-making spaces.

09:54We fund, I think there's so many, we fund something called Climate Works,

09:57and they focus on defining words of the climate crisis so that people

10:02know what we mean when we talk about certain things. Because we use so many words that,

10:09for the world, they might not mean a lot. So it's about access and meeting people where they're at.

10:15Yeah. And that's such a good point. You know, there's terms like grain washing and, you know,

10:21sometimes even people are like, what is climate change? You know, it's like as simple as that.

10:26There's people that don't know about it. What do you think in this, you know, we're in a very digital

10:31age. What is the best way to communicate with the common person? How do you get them to care about this?

10:39My perspective is that, well, rule number one of communication is you always need to meet people

10:47where they're at. And right now we all have our individualized algorithms that show us what we

10:51care about. So we are not in a place where we can put an ad and then people will care, right? So it's

10:58really building community. I think person to person is one thing. So we do a lot of in-person events,

11:04gatherings. We just finished our first ever youth gala, which is incredible.

11:08And it's telling people the work that we're doing in those settings. People crave community.

11:13In Mexico City, I've been going to so many workshops that breach the climate of emotions

11:21and just making sure that people can have that outlet as well. Another really important thing

11:26when communicating the climate crisis is that we're really tired of doomerism, right? Like,

11:32we cannot say the world is ending and then people go, well, okay, then what do I do? We have so much

11:38that we can still do. Scientifically, we can still go back into the 1.5-degree target by the end of the

11:44century. There's so much to save. There's so much to fight for. We have each other to fight for,

11:49you know what I mean? That's why I love this community because we are seeing what the world is

11:54going to be like, when we are in 2050, I'm going to be 48. I don't know how old you'll be, but I'm

11:59sure you'll be like close to that, you know? It's our world. And so what are we doing to make sure that

12:04that's the case? And we tell those stories.

12:07Yeah. I saw one of the talks you gave and you said something to the effect of,

12:12instead of thinking of the climate crisis as this negative thing, we need to start thinking about

12:19it in, not thinking about it in a positive way, but communicating things in a positive,

12:25which I think is what you were just saying right now is like, you know, saying that there are still

12:29things that can be done. Yeah. Tell me a little bit more about that.

12:33We, our climate storytelling, our narrative is that we're heading to apocalypse. Yeah.

12:40And that is so harmful for us to think about the future in that way, because the way in which we

12:45think about the future does dictate how we behave. So what I've been telling people is there's so many

12:51communities that have seen their ends of the world. When indigenous communities were displaced or

12:57there was forced assimilation, that was an end, right? So we are actually already rebuilding

13:03the world. We should see ourselves as builders and architects of the future. And that gives us so

13:09much more agency into what type of energy we shop with, which is why I am really, really solutions

13:15oriented because it excites me to dream of a world that is beautiful. It excites me to think that

13:20imagining positive futures is medicine for us. It like, I'm literally getting goosebumps just thinking

13:26of the possibilities of people who care so deeply and are willing to go above and beyond to build the

13:33societies that work for us. And you know, we're here talking about 30 under 30, right? So what are

13:40things that startups, especially founded by young people, should really be thinking about as they're,

13:46you know, building these businesses and corporations that might one day be as big as like, you know,

13:51Google or Microsoft, what would you tell them? Well, I have a lot of thoughts here. We have to

14:00build the world for us, right? Yeah. So I have so many friends who are entrepreneurs,

14:06who are doing things very differently. I have a friend who's working on a company that builds

14:11materials to replace leather in all goods, because we know the fashion industry is one of the biggest

14:15things for our generation, but it's also one of the most harmful things for the planet. We produce

14:20around a hundred billion pieces of clothing every year. We have enough clothes to dress the next 30

14:26years of people without producing one more. I mean, we are really in more a crisis of overproduction

14:32than a crisis of overconsumption. And we don't really see it that way. We always criticize the consumer,

14:38but we also need to look at supply chain. We need to look at the amount of things that are being put out

14:42there. And that is when I think the beauty of the circular economy comes in. Everything that is waste in

14:48nature is always nutrients for the next cycle. We should see our world like that too. Like whatever

14:55we build cannot be just dead and waste. It has to be adding to the next cycle. That is the way Earth

15:01behaves. And if you think about it, the Earth, Mother Earth has been teaching us how the most effective

15:08things to do things and has been developing that for millions of years. And we're here breaking that

15:13cycle as if we knew better. And if we just became part of those cycles of life, then we could thrive

15:19with the Earth and also have economies that are thriving and communities that are thriving.

15:24So that's my, I wouldn't call it advice because, you know, they could hear, they could listen to whoever

15:29they want. But I think my ask, my very humble ask as somebody who shares this planet with my fellow peers

15:36who are building companies today is that they think of the planetary boundary framework when they build

15:42their businesses to make sure that we are stewarding the world for each other.

15:46How do you think AI is going to affect the planet? You know, there's a lot of talk about just data

15:54centers and how just asking ChatGPT for random things is actually hurting the planet. Tell me more

16:03about it. What should we know about that? Well, it is true that data centers are some of the most

16:10energy intensive infrastructure that we have right now in the world. AI data centers and data centers

16:16in general should be powered by renewable energy. I think that is the baseline. We cannot keep building

16:22and all of these tech companies, they all had net zero targets for 2050. And because of AI,

16:28they're backing down from those commitments. So it's actually really serious. These data centers

16:35are consuming more energy than I think we can imagine. And then the other side of it is asking

16:42ChatGPT for everything. Like it might be keeping us from community, you know? So like maybe check in

16:49with your friend first and then ask Chat. I know the kids call it. But are there any positives you see

16:57with, you know, everybody adopting AI in their daily lives? Maybe not daily lives, but well,

17:05a really important use of AI for climate is actually waste management. Okay. If you can ask

17:13AI how to, like what new products or what can be made for this waste, that's actually really,

17:19really effective. And there's a lot of work being done around that. Also for climate scientists,

17:25it's really incredible for looking at all of these different weather patterns and trying to predict

17:30things better, making our models more accurate. So it can have good implications for waste and for science.

17:37I think for day-to-day use, what if we ask how to make everything that you do more sustainable?

17:43I think it might have more ideas than me. Yeah. I mean, this is just what you've taken on,

17:50like the climate crisis and being the voice and an activist in the space. That can be a

17:55very emotionally draining sometimes. When we were talking earlier, you were talking about your

18:00rising signs and your sun and your mood. You're talking about how, you know, your cancer side makes you

18:06more emotional and sensitive, but your airy side gives you the courage to still take on the challenge.

18:12But when it comes to, you know, the work you do, how do you actually navigate, you know, how do you

18:18handle it in a way that doesn't affect you personally? Or maybe it does affect you personally, and that's

18:24what drives you. I want to know more about that. Yeah. So I feel things very, very, very deeply. And I think

18:34that is why I care so much too, because I am very empathetic. And I see, when I see injustice,

18:41I feel rage about it and I want to do something about it. But I realized that if our activism comes

18:47from anger, you burn out. If our activism comes from just fueling it with us being upset about the state

18:55of the world, we're not going to last for a long time. When our activism is filled with deep love

19:03of what we care about, of each other, of the future, like imagine what it's like to love the future.

19:09What type of future do we want to have to love the future? That is when my fight just becomes so much

19:17rooted. And I also, I meet all types of people. I think I once spoke in a summit with 40 heads of

19:26state, and I was the only youth speaker there. And I've been in environments where I'm also just

19:31speaking with company leaders. I've been invited to Davos to, you know, like all of these places,

19:37all different types of people, and in my community at home, who I am representing as well,

19:42which is a big responsibility. I see every single person as a seed of potential for connecting with

19:50the world. I think, you know, think of huge, ginormous trees in the Amazon, they came from a little,

19:56tiny seed. We're all that, and we need to steward that environment for us to grow for each other.

20:03So I could never go into a place and judge somebody, right? Because they're just like every one of us,

20:10growing in their potential. And I think what we need to do is create the environment that is necessary

20:16for us to find what is the ground that we can flourish in. Because if you're a seed for the,

20:22you know, a mangrove seed for this, the desert, you're not going to flourish in the jungle.

20:27Yeah. Like we need to find our place where we all belong.

20:30You know, for a lot of people, it can be really daunting to think about

20:35the climate crisis, as we've talked about, you know, we, it's been set up in such a way like,

20:40okay, the world's going to end anyway. So I'm not thinking about this. And then there's also this

20:45feeling of being overwhelmed, like, do I really need to drink from a paper straw or things like that?

20:50You know, people, people think about that. They say that. If you could give them

20:54one piece of advice of something they could start now in their day-to-day lives, what would you tell

21:00them? One of my mentors, Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson, has this diagram that I find super helpful. It's

21:06like a Venn diagram that has three circles. And one of the sides say, what you're good at. The other

21:13one says, what brings you joy. And then the other one says, what needs to be done. And in the middle,

21:19that is what you should do for climate. I think being part of, you know, building a better world

21:26is everybody's, everybody should be called to it. You know, I don't think, I think it's a big

21:33misconception to say that being or doing things more sustainably and more environmentally friendly

21:40is a weight that it shouldn't be annoying to you. And I think that's the perception that it's annoying to

21:46have to have your straw melt away or, you know, all of these things. It should be empowering. It should

21:52be beautiful. And so if you haven't found that, then don't stop looking.

21:57Okay. Thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for having me.

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