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Climate change would be a global priority if young people were in charge, according to an environmentalist and author who has been writing about the topic since the late 1980s.

"If the world was run by people 40 and under, this is the thing we'd be working on all the time, and we'd be making huge progress," said Bill McKibben.

McKibben is co-founder and senior adviser to 350.org, an international campaign targeting climate change. He has worked on the issue for decades and is encouraged that young people today are so engaged on the topic.

Events like recent wildfires in California have placed climate change firmly in the headlines and the global conversation. (Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images)

"The problem is people of my generation who refuse to let change happen, who insist on keeping the same technologies, the same power and patterns of wealth and settlement and industry that we've had in their lifetimes," he said.

"One understands why people want things not to change, but things are going to change on a completely different scale if we don't make human changes first."