Enabling students to engage with socioscientific issues has been described as a central aim of modern science education. This includes equipping students with the knowledge and skillsnecessary to take responsible action in the light of pressing issues such as climate change.Consistent with this aim, action competence defines the (1) knowledge, (2) willingness, and (3) efficacy that theoretically characterise those students who are able to take conscious action on climate-related issues. To date, however, there has been a lack of research on the extent to which action competence influences young people’s climate action, and there is only scattered evidence on the role that biology education can play in this regard. To address this gap, the present study examines which aspects of action competence young people consider most relevant when reporting on their climate action. Twenty-eight semi-structured interviews were conducted in Sweden and Germany (N = 14 interviews per country) with young adults who are actively engaged in climate movements such as Fridays-for-Future. The interview data is analysed using the method of qualitative content analysis. Preliminary results suggest that the aspect of efficacy is particularly strong among participants while knowledge about climate change is rather seen as a threshold for action. For biology education, these results argue for a stronger link between climate-related content knowledge and its application to evaluate the effectiveness of climate-related actions.