About the session The energy transition will create millions of jobs. The question is who gets them. Across Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, huge numbers of young people are coming of age in economies simultaneously exposed to climate risk and disconnected from many of the training opportunities, networks, and sources of capital that determine who participates in the green economy. Solar installations, clean energy systems, climate-smart agriculture, sustainable infrastructure, and new climate ventures will need workers, entrepreneurs, and leaders. There is no shortage of young people ready to fill those roles. There is a shortage of pathways to get them there. Part of the problem is that the conversations remain disconnected. Green jobs are discussed in climate and investment rooms. Youth employment sits in development and education. Green skills sit in technical and vocational training. Entrepreneurship has its own ecosystem. Young people who would benefit from all of them are too rarely involved in designing any of them. The result is a green economy being built without enough attention to its future workforce, while a generation of young people is told that the transition matters for their future without being given a meaningful role in building it. We already have important clues about what works. Education-to-employment pathways can connect young people with climate-relevant skills and real opportunities. Youth-led entrepreneurs are building climate businesses suited to local markets. Civic platforms can give young people meaningful roles in decisions about natural resources and environmental priorities. New AI-enabled approaches could also change how quickly people acquire skills and navigate into emerging occupations. But isolated successes do not yet add up to a system. Employers need stronger connections to the organizations developing young talent. Climate funders need to consider the skills and entrepreneurship infrastructure behind the projects they want to finance. Governments making transition commitments need to connect climate planning with employment and education policy. And young people need to be architects of those systems, not simply their intended beneficiaries. This session will ask what it would take to build a green economy that young people in the Global South can enter, shape, lead, and benefit from. If millions of green jobs are coming, what are we doing now to determine who gets them? What to expect A practical, cross-sector conversation grounded in experience from Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. The discussion will move between three connected challenges: the workforce question of which skills and pathways young people need;the entrepreneurship question of what it takes for young people to build climate ventures;and the systems question of how employers, governments, funders, and education institutions need to work differently. Participants will examine where promising models already exist and what prevents them from becoming coherent pathways into the green economy. Young people will participate as voices and contributors in the room, not as subjects being discussed by everyone else. Who this is for This session is for climate and green economy investors and employers, youth workforce organizations, education and skills practitioners, governments working on the energy transition, climate philanthropists, youth-led organizations, entrepreneurs, and anyone working on climate action who wants to understand whether the next generation has a real pathway into the economy being built around it. What you will get out of it A clearer understanding of the barriers preventing young people from accessing green economy opportunities across Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia Evidence and practical experience from approaches connecting education and skills with climate-relevant work and entrepreneurship Perspectives from young climate leaders and entrepreneurs on what they need from employers, funders, governments, and education systems Practical thinking on how green skills, youth entrepreneurship, civic participation, and employment pathways can become parts of a coherent transition strategy A sharper question for climate funders, employers, and governments: whether today's transition investments are actually building the workforce and leadership the green economy will need