Climate change education

Climate change education (CCE) is education that aims to address and develop effective responses to climate change. It helps learners understand the causes and consequences of climate change, prepares them to live with the impacts of climate change and empowers learners to take appropriate actions to adopt more sustainable lifestyles. Climate change and climate change education are global challenges that can be anchored in the curriculum in order to provide local learning and widen up mindset shifts on how climate change can be mitigated. In such a case, CCE is more than climate change literacy, but understanding ways of dealing with climate.

CCE helps policymakers understand the urgency and importance of putting mechanisms into place to combat climate change on a national and global scale. Communities learn about how climate change will affect them, what they can do to protect themselves from negative consequences, and how they can reduce their own carbon footprint. In particular, CCE helps increase the resilience of already vulnerable communities who are the most likely to be adversely affected by climate change.

CCE is rooted in Education for sustainable development (ESD).

Established in 2010, the UNESCO Climate Change Education for Sustainable Development programme (CCESD) aims to help people understand climate change by expanding CCE activities in nonformal education through the media, networking and partnerships. With the help of organizations and individuals, UNESCO is able to host the World Higher Education Conference (in Barcelona 2022). It is grounded in the holistic approach of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) which incorporates key sustainable development issues such as climate change, disaster risk reduction and others into education, in a way that addresses the interdependence of environmental sustainability, economic viability and social justice. It promotes participatory teaching and learning methods that motivate and empower learners to change their behaviour and take action for sustainable development. The programme seeks to help people understand the impact of global warming today and increase 'climate literacy', especially among young people, and aims to make education a more central part of the international response to climate change. UNESCO works with national governments to integrate CCE into national curricula and to develop innovative teaching and learning approaches for doing so.

In 2020 Argentina passed Yolanda's Law (Spanish: Ley Yolanda), which requires all members of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government to undertake 16 hours of environmental education. This must include information about climate change, the protection of biodiversity and ecosystems, energy efficiency and renewable energies, the circular economy and sustainable development, as well as information related to current environmental regulations. As of September 2023, 50,000 officials of the three branches of government have been trained.

In March 2021 Argentina passed 'The Comprehensive Environmental Education Law' (Spanish: (Ley de Educación Ambiental), which establishes the right to comprehensive environmental education as a national public policy.

Australia has been at the forefront of education for sustainability, adopting in 2000 a national plan entitled Environmental Education for a Sustainable Future. A number of initiatives and bodies were created to implement the national plan, including the Australian Sustainable Schools Initiative and Australian Research Institute for Environment and Sustainability. These provided a strong foundation for Australia's strategy, launched in 2006, to respond to the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. The strategy set out the goal to mainstream sustainability through a holistic approach that engages the community through education and lifelong learning. Whereas climate change was referred to as one of a number of environmental concerns in the first national plan, a new plan launched in 2009, entitled Living Sustainably: the Australian Government's National Action Plan for Education for Sustainability, had a greater focus on climate change and its impacts on other natural resources within a wider global context. The new plan incorporated climate change within education for sustainability, rather than establishing a new and potentially competing field of Climate Change Education. Australia introduced its first-ever national curriculum in 2014, including sustainability as one of three cross-curriculum subjects.

Since 2009, Climate Change Education has been most evident in the VET sector. COAG endorsed the Green Skills Agreement in 2009, and the Ministerial Council for Vocational and Technical Education published the National VET Sector Sustainability Policy and Action Plan (2009-2012). These initiatives aimed to provide workers with the skills needed to transition to a low-carbon economy and VET teachers with suitable training packages to promote education for sustainability.