Students and teachers are key actors in the fight against climate change. The European Commission supports to this end the Education for Climate Coalition.
Students and teachers are key actors in the fight against climate change. The European Commission supports to this end the Education for Climate Coalition.
In the wake of the youth climate protests and the overarching priority of the European Union (EU) to foster a green transition, education becomes a key element in the fight against climate change and for sustainability. Initiated in December 2020, the European Education for Climate coalition is becoming a reality as it held its first ever education for climate day on 25 November 2021.
The coalition is a Europe-wide community reuniting students, pupils, teachers and other education stakeholders. They set five goals to bring European approaches and actions to learn and teach about climate change forward: develop green skills and competences, train teachers, bridge education with science, raise awareness, and change behaviours.
Mariya Gabriel, European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, together with a team from the EU’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) presented the approach and the platform to support the coalition. Commissioner Gabriel stressed that the coalition is a co-creation by students and teachers who should shape the community in a bottom-up approach supported where needed by the European Commission (EC). The JRC then unveiled the new Education for Climate Community Platform. The platform offers the possibility for online collaboration, to discover what other schools and teachers are doing to educate for climate and also to network and start new actions and challenges within the field of education.
The coalition also works together with the Office for Climate Education of UNESCO. This Paris based office supports governments in integrating climate change and sustainability elements in their national curricula. This work of UNESCO was endorsed by ministers in the Berlin Declaration on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) of May 2021, which calls for sustainable development to be a core component of all education systems at all levels by 2025. According to UNESCO, this holistic approach requires the greening of curricula, the greening of school infrastructure and the greening of teacher training.
In complement to the community of practise of the Education for Climate coalition, the EC pursues two additional initiatives as part of an integrated approach for climate and sustainability education. Firstly, the JRC is working on a Sustainability Competence framework to clearly define for EU and coalition actors what Green skills in and for education are. In order to develop the framework, the JRC has already completed and published literature review on sustainability competences. Green skills is also an important element of the European Skills Agenda, which aims to strengthen sustainable competitiveness of the European Green Deal. Secondly, in the next year the EC will propose a Council Recommendation on Education for Environmental Sustainability. The recommendation is linked to the European Education Area (EEA), the EU Biodiversity Strategy and the Just Transition Fund.
In its resolution on the EEA of 11 November 2021, the European Parliament (EP) also called on Member States to promote education related to climate change and the ecological transition and to raise awareness of the European Green Deal.