Education and climate change

The Global Education Monitoring Report is introducing a new series to advance dialogue on the interrelationship of education with the other Sustainable Development Goals. The first paper in the series focuses on climate change and is in partnership with the Monitoring and Evaluating Climate Communication and Education (MECCE) Project.  

Education has a somewhat underappreciated contribution to developing professional capacities for the transition to a green economy. Formal, non-formal and informal learning are also commonly believed to be playing a critical role in motivating actions on climate change mitigation and adaptation. Yet a positive association between education attainment and unsustainable consumption levels, as well as inconclusiveness of much research on the direct impact of education on climate change has contributed to education receiving low priority in climate change agendas.

This paper argues that climate change education needs to adapt to fulfil its potential. The education paradigm cannot rely solely on knowledge transfer but needs to focus on social and emotional, and action-oriented learning. The paper proposes a framework for a new global indicator on greening education. It was developed in response to a decision by the SDG 4 High-level Steering Committee in December 2022 to have a benchmark indicator developed on areas prioritized at the Transforming Education Summit, including on greening education. 

Based on analysis of ‘green’ curriculum content across grades 3, 6, and 9, the 76 countries assessed scored an average of 50% on the maximum possible level of environment and sustainability content, but only averaged 21% of the maximum score on climate change content and just 12% on biodiversity content. Critically, less green content was found in social science than in science syllabi, and in grade 3 than in grade 6 or 9 subject syllabi.