Climate Change Education for Social Transformation: Whole-institution approach to greening every school
At COP27 in 2022, the UN Secretary-General emphasized “we are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator,” as we struggle to transform our societies to reach the 1.5-degree path recommended by the Paris Agreement. In an increasingly complex and interconnected world with a real, existential threat such as climate change, there is a growing call for education to enable individuals, as agents of change, to acquire knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes that lead to green transition of our societies, as enshrined in SDG Target 4.7, and, indeed, in the entire 2030 Agenda.
In order to accelerate urgent action on climate sustainability, the Greening Education Partnership was launched during the Transforming Education Summit as a global initiative to deliver strong, coordinated, and comprehensive action to advance and improve the implementation of climate change education. The partnership encourages countries and key stakeholders to focus on 4 action areas:
- Greening schools
- Greening curriculum
- Greening capacities of teachers and education systems
- Greening communities
Following the success of the first series of eight monthly conversations on climate change education for social transformation on the road to COP27 which gathered 15,000 participants from 184 countries and focused on greening every education policy and curriculum, UNESCO and UNFCCC are launching a second series of six webinars, from May to December 2023, on greening schools on the road to COP28 in Dubai, UAE.
The discussions will focus on how to ensure that all learning institutions, from early childhood through adult education, are climate-ready and integrate a whole-institution approach to ESD to transform their teaching and learning, school facilities and operation, school governance and community engagement. The webinars feed into the ACE Hub, an initiative launched by UNFCCC and the German Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia in 2022 to foster education and public awareness, training, public access to information and participation in climate action.
The webinars are conducted in English. Live interpretation in French and Spanish will be provided.
Access the concept note here. Register for the webinar series here.