Inspiring YA Climate Change Fiction and Environmental Fiction
Looking for YA Climate Change Fiction and Environmental Fiction? I have a great list of new Cli-Fi Books and YA books about characters who are passionate about the environment and environmental justice.
2020s YA Climate Change Fiction and Environmental Fiction With Characters Passionate About the Environment
These books feature inspiring teens who are passionate about the environment and combating climate change.
What is Environmental Justice?
Environmental justice is a social movement that addresses inequities that occurs when poor or marginalized communities are harmed by hazardous waste, resource extraction, and other land uses from which they do not benefit.
For non-fiction YA Environmental Books, check out this great list from the Westmont Library!
We Don’t Have Time for This by Brianna Craft (2025)
A hate-to-love romance featuring two high school students who run their school’s environmental justice club.
This is the Year by Gloria Muñoz (2025)
A young girl passionate about the environment and mourning the loss of her twin sister is approached by a private space program. Will she leave earth behind, or stay back and help make change on this planet.
All the Water in the World by Eiren Caffall (2025)
All the Water in the World is an adult title with a main character who is a young girl. She and her family have taken refuge on the roof of Manhattan’s American Museum of Natural History But when a huge storm hits, they must flee, figuring out what to carry with them as they flee.
Fault Lines by Nora Shalaway Carpenter (2023)
Riveting, powerful, and a little bit magical, Fault Lines offers readers a slow-burn romance alongside an unflinching examination of socio-economics, gender expectations, and the environmental fallout and ethics of fracking.
It Looks Like Us by Alison Ames by Alison Ames (2022)
Riley Kowalski is spending her winter break on a research trip to Antarctica, sponsored by one of the world’s biggest tech companies. The trip is trying to prove that environmental plastic pollution has reached all the way to Antarctica, but what they find is something much worse… something that looks human.
2000s and 2010s YA Dystopian Books about Climate Change
What is Cli-Fi (climate change fiction)?
Cli-Fi is a popular subgenre that can span realistic fiction, science fiction, and dystopian fiction. YA climate change fiction are typically dystopian novels are dystopias that imagine
a world ravaged by global warming and climate change.
Many YA Dystopian/Sci-Fi books of the 2010s started out with the premise of a ruined earth, but these five focus specifically on environmental issues.
Not a Drop to Drink by Mindy McGinnis (2013)
Here’s what I said about this book in 2013: “Beautifully written. And very grim. If you like strong female heroines, Lynn’s your girl. She was like a YA post-apocalyptic Charles Bronson. If you like dark survival stories, this one is definitely for you.”
Four starred industry reviews!
“The authors do not hold back.” —Booklist (starred review)
“The palpable desperation that pervades the plot…feels true, giving it a chilling air of inevitability.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“The Shustermans challenge readers.” —School Library Journal (starred review)
“No one does doom like Neal Shusterman.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Ship Breaker by Paoli Bacigalupi (2011)
National Book Award finalist!
Set in a dark future America devastated by the forces of climate change, this thrilling bestseller and National Book Finalist is a gritty, high-stakes adventure of a teenage boy. In America’s flooded Gulf Coast region, oil is scarce, but loyalty is scarcer.
Floodland by Marcus Sedgwick (2000)
Global warming caused the seas to rise until cities turn into islands. Civilization is crumbling. Zoe Black was left behind on Norwich by accident when her parents escaped in the last supply ship to visit the island. Zoe discovers a small rowboat and keeps it a secret until she can set out alone on the great sea to find her parents.
The Water Wars by Cameron Stracher (2011)
Vera and Will live in the aftermath of the Great Panic, in which their homeland collapsed from environmental catastrophe. Water is hoarded by governments, rivers are dammed, and clouds are sucked from the sky. But then Vera befriends Kai, who seems to have limitless access to fresh water. When Kai suddenly disappears, Vera and Will set off to find him.
If you love books with outdoor settings and climate change themes, check out my list of YA Books About Survival in the Wilderness, which includes books about surviving wildfires and floods.
