The Global Youth Forum will also address a number of cross-cutting themes that are relevant for all of the thematic areas listed above: just transition, participation and inclusion, education and capacity-building, means of implementation, and just recovery.

1. Just Transition aims to secure the future and livelihoods of workers and their communities in the transition toward a low-carbon economy and shift to sustainable means of production and consumption, by finding inclusive, fair, just, and long-lasting solutions without creating more challenges or widening the gap of inequality. It involves diversifying local, regional or national economies, building relevant knowledge, expertise and supply chains, providing training or skills development programmes, and offering interim support such as relocation aid and social protection.

2. Participation and inclusion of stakeholders from all levels of society is vital to tackling climate change and designing solutions. Not only are those who least contribute to global greenhouse gasses often impacted the most, they are also underrepresented in decision-making processes. Achieving inclusivity and participation is a two-fold goal: the effects of climate change on the most vulnerable populations must be minimized, and the benefits of climate action must be inclusive, with a special focus on women, indigenous people, and other marginalized groups.

3. Education and capacity-building are essential for people of all ages, especially children and youth, to raise awareness and promote action to address the wide-ranging impacts of climate change. Currently, there is limited access to innovative and effective forms of climate change education to enact change within local and global environments and communities. Capacity building is necessary to ensure that sufficient resources are allocated to train and develop the capacity of stakeholders to engage with climate action and communities in an effective and efficient object-oriented manner. Strategies to build capacity and educate can include media campaigns, programmes within schools, research, extracurricular activities, community-based projects and programmes, and training workshops and initiatives.

4. Means of implementation refers to the combination of financial resources, capacity building, and technology development and transfer as an integral part of implementing the sustainable development agenda. These key elements must be enhanced through global and public-private partnerships. Developed countries in the 2015 Paris Agreement in particular should support mitigation and adaptation efforts in developing countries by enhancing the provision of means of implementation. A transparent and accountable national enabling framework is also a key element of the means of implementation, especially in developing countries.

5. Just recovery is the process of recovering from a disaster or crisis in a just and equitable manner built on socioeconomic, gender, and environmental justice. There are a few primary principles of just recovery that include addressing the root causes of both the crisis at hand and the underlying inequalities and structural issues that worsen the effects of the crisis, redistribution of resources with a focus on supporting marginalized communities, internationalism and building collective responses to crises, strengthening democracy by empowering disenfranchised groups, self-governance on a community level, and ecological restoration. These principles will promote a recovery that ensures resilience in the face of future crises.