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Where are we with climate education?

This month, the world celebrates International Day of Education. But as the climate crisis continues to approach us, where does it sit in our curriculums and why is it ever more critical that we teach our children how to tackle it?

I still remember the first time I learned of climate change. Although, back then, it was more widely known as global warming.

It was during a rainy science lesson in primary school roughly 12 years ago. That day, my classmates and I discovered that every time we left our lights on, or used the car instead of riding our bicycles, the planet would heat up and polar bears would be left homeless. As an impressionable child, that image has stuck with me ever since.

But our school โ€“ like most โ€“ never took that first lesson any further. Itโ€™s really thanks to streaming documentaries, Greta Thunberg, and mass street protests that I developed an interest in our climate.

This year, UNESCOโ€™s International Day of Education showcased some of the most important transformations in education, including virtual reality and electronic books. The changes that have helped build a more sustainable, inclusive, and peaceful future โ€“ at the heart of that is climate education.


But what is climate education?ย 

With eco anxiety at an all-time high, there is no doubt that education is the key to settling our climate concerns.

Climate change education is the umbrella term for the building of a sustainable future through inspiring positive actions and building skills. The topic ties in with so many other issues we currently face, including human rights and public mental and physical health, all of which could also be included in classrooms.

Without it, future generations will not be armed with the knowledge they need to tackle the long-term consequences of climate change, nor will our planetโ€™s current inhabitants understand how they can use individual as well as corporate actions to slow down the process โ€“ or in the best-case scenario, reverse it.

The UN says education โ€˜empowers all peopleโ€™ and motivates the young to take action. It says: โ€˜Knowing the facts helps eliminate the fear of an issue which is frequently coloured by doom and gloom in the public arena.โ€™


Where are we with climate education today?

Schools in Italy, where I grew up, only started implementing climate education into their curriculums two years after I graduated โ€“ in 2020.

At the time of its pledge in 2019, Italyโ€™s minister of education, innovation, and research Lorenzo Fioramonti said young people were โ€˜demandingโ€™ governments take climate change far more seriously.

โ€˜There are many areas of society where we must act, and act with increased ambition: compulsory education on these topics needs to be a key part of this national and international response to the big issues of our time,โ€™ Fioramonti said.

As of September 2020, Italian schools have required teachers to include 33 hours of this topic into their lessons annually. This covers about one hour per week, for every school year. So not very much.

Yet Italy is meant to be at the very forefront of climate education.

In fact, according to UNESCO, only 53% of the worldโ€™s national education curricula currently make any reference to climate change. And when they do mention the subject, it is almost always given very low priority, the organisation has found.


So what can we do?

We still have time and there are so many ways in which climate education can be implemented.

Following COP26, 23 nations have promised to turn their schools net-zero and put climate at the core of their curriculums. We need to hold our governments accountable so that these promises are not just empty words.

UNESCO has launched several initiatives to help people understand climate changeโ€™s impact and increase childrenโ€™s โ€œclimate literacyโ€ โ€“ including its Climate Change Education for Sustainable Development programme. We can use the knowledge we already have to inform those who donโ€™t have the same access or the same capacity as we do with the Internet.

The World Meteorological Organisation and weather presenters from across the world also recently launched a network, Climate without Borders, which aims to โ€˜educate, motivate and activateโ€™ weather presenters to inform their audiences with the right information. We can get local news networks to sign up to this network so that the people that still turn to television to get their news are not living in a bubble.

As young people, whether we are students or not, we still learn new things every day. You can still take life by the reins and educate yourself about climate education via a range of online resources.

Teachers also have a say โ€“ even in places where climate education is yet to be introduced. In the UK, Teach the Future is aiming to include the climate emergency in teacher training, as well as make it key content in all subject areas, not just geography or science.

Classrooms are, however, the best place to make a difference that really sticks. If just one teacher had made me realise just how severe the crisis is, and just how powerful we are as individuals, I may have taken action more quickly. And so would so many of my classmates and millions of schoolchildren across the world.

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