The climate crisis, education and what we need to do to learn our way out of it

The climate crisis is the latest episode in the A Different Lens documentary series, and it exemplifies two big tasks for climate literacy.

The first is to ensure that culturally-relevant climate change education helps us all understand this problem from wherever we may start in facing the climate crisis.

The second is that any talk of climate change education needs both careful design and concrete support to ensure it resonates, is rigorous and broad-based, and is of the highest quality to do justice to the degree of existential threat the episode illustrates.

Acknowledging we need to learn and change direction is at the heart of the climate crisis.

Inspiration, collaboration and infrastructure will be essential in bringing the two together, and only then will it show we have seized the moment to learn our way out of this crisis – whether that is through schools, colleges, universities, community settings, workplaces, unions, the media, and so on.

A tried and tested approach that Australia can readily adopt is to create a network of climate change offices. Hosted within government departments, these can coordinate programs of educational development, leadership and action.

Such offices should be tasked with ensuring rigour and quality in climate education, as well as fostering new ideas, partnerships and mechanisms that catalyse work in schools, curriculum, professional development and communities.

However, a perennial challenge to such an approach is ensuring these offices are well-resourced and protected from party political squabbles. Another is balancing how we develop and align policy initiatives at local, state and federal levels, and –  crucially – differentiate it.

Climate change education faces both challenges.

To meet them, preservice teacher education and professional development can build on the overwhelming public support and scientific consensus to act now to address the climate emergency.

Grasping this has consequences, too. The energy and urgency of change should not be undermined by maintaining the broad contours of current education policy and practice. At their heart, critics show these have simply supported cultural and economic arrangements that are unsustainable politically, environmentally and ethically in the face of the current climate emergency, helping fuel it rather than mitigate or reverse it.

Read more: Can learning shape the future of humanity and the planet?

A starting point for moving forward also requires a simple recognition – that the champions of education reform and innovation about climate change still tend to be local groups of passionate and committed students and teachers. These groups are often energised and sustained by participating in loose coalitions with other climate justice and climate emergency networks, as symbolised by Greta Thunberg and other youth-led leadership and actions.

We will know we’re making significant progress on climate education in Australia if those we look to are representative of a wider range of local faces across generations, locations, settings and cultures who stand together on this challenge.

Equally, we should expect this range to honestly represent those impacted by the climate crisis, as well as those that are bringing about change through deep – rather than tokenistic or opportunistic – engagement with the education sector.

In other words, this cannot be reduced to matters of social marketing, nudging or influencing, nor icons from overseas or be championed by generations who won’t live through the worst of what’s predicted. What is at stake is ensuring Australia provides quality education for these times and into the future, as outlined in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal No.4, and UNESCO’s Futures of Education report.

So, where are we?

It saddens me to have to say we have yet to see our education ministers front and centre in moving things forward on climate literacy.

Italy showed that at the Glasgow COP meeting; Australia did not.

Read more: COP26: Momentum shifts to help curtail the emissions curve, but not enough to crush it

Nor are our education ministers working shoulder-to-shoulder with those from environment, health, defence and economic portfolios.

Joe Biden championed this kind of joined-up thinking at his Leaders’ Summit on Climate in April 2021. Scott Morrison’s track record is salutatory – he avoided demonstrating it then and hasn’t done so since, be that at Glasgow or beyond.

This matters, because acknowledging we need to learn and change direction is at the heart of the climate crisis.

Culture, science and the arts show all generations know there are things we need to unlearn, learn and relearn about conditions for living together on this planet in just, equitable and sustainable ways. Put bluntly, there are plenty of candidates of carbon-intensive lifestyles that by now should only appear in our history books.

In other words, educators and governments shouldn’t be afraid to ask hard questions about which ways of living, lifestyles and livelihoods are at threat, as well as cause or exacerbate the climate threat.

Read more: The Glasgow COP: Walking the high wire on climate change

As COP26 in Glasgow showed, joining the dots across ministerial portfolios is crucial to realising any chance of systemic change –especially in relation to law and policy reform, and demonstrating the integrity and transparency of governments and governance. It’s also a powerful sign of commitment to organisational learning, too – and not continuing with passing the buck.

Now, finding prime ministers at the crux of climate debate and action isn’t unknown in Australia. However, in more recent times, it has not always been clear if they speak up because they have themselves, their children or grandchildren, or something other, in mind.

As a case in point, what does practising rather than preaching “creation care” involve?

If we consider the “green awakening” of Pope Francis, he seems to be the first leader of the Catholic Church to be on board with anything like the Paris Agreement. His name also happens to provide a delightful call back to a patron saint of ecology and community-mindedness who put words into action.

Pope Francis, like the saint before him, is now trying to lead a very imperfect institution in reorienting itself to address ecological conditions and concerns for life on this planet.

So, perhaps rather than simply hear leaders suggest the equivalent of praying for it, Australia as a whole could demand something similar from its leaders in government and education about climate change? One option is a clear statement or manifesto equivalent to Laudato Si’ in Australia that spells out why we need to shift and transform the focus and depth of our “social teaching” as well as our education.

Why? Because if we can all agree that climate stability is a basic human right, it matters where, when and from whom we’re learning this.

Read more: Promoting an education for global citizenship and sustainability

So far, we aren’t seeing clear leadership from government departments at state and federal level on what climate change education means, and how it’s offered in meaningful ways in schools.

This includes in relation to developing Australian Curriculum v9.0, which, given the times, could have strengthened sustainability as a priority for study. Doing so makes it easy to embed climate change as a topic across all learning areas in ways that ensure a sound educational progression in the knowledge, skills, values and world views students are taught and learn about. It would also show that the COP process and Paris Agreement is being heard and engaged by education ministers and leaders across sectors and portfolios.

The national, state and community-level responses to the COVID-19 pandemic are instructive by comparison here. They serve to show how fragmented and weak policymakers have been in responding to a climate crisis that is ongoing.

As Tony Capon emphases, the climate crisis is a bigger, more complicated and longer-term threat to all peoples’ health and their communities than the coronavirus.

On the one hand, if governments are prepared to make radical changes to schooling and the lives of students and teachers to address the pandemic to maintain their right to learn and work, it’s no longer unimaginable to consider how we might strike the balance of costs and benefits to addressing the climate crisis.

And, as the ADL episode shows, that has to be sooner rather than later, especially if we’re to maintain climate stability as a basic human right.

Read more: The urgent need to transform healthcare education to address climate change

In terms of urgency, I’m also reminded of the saying: “There’s no jobs on a dead planet.” It’s a two-edged sword. Employers who don’t listen to their markets are soon out of business. Equally, employers don’t offer jobs to graduates of the education system who aren’t capable of working with the challenges of today’s world.

So if there’s a task for economists, cultural historians, geologists, and zoologists to work on together now, it’s to learn from “extinction studies” in ways that help us all avoid repeating the mistakes those spell out for business models, species and civilisations – that is, forms and ways of life – that are no longer sustainable, be that for First Nations through to the latest individual and corporate citizens of Australia.

Anna Skarbek makes this point directly – now is the time to grasp the nettle of turning around existential as well as economic priorities for jobs and careers so they’re all climate-literate and climate-change-ready.

Working upstream, that means technical, vocational and academic education and training have a relevant climate literacy as a clear part of the DNA of each educational offering.

Read more: New-world education: What's needed to lead schools into the future

Climate literacy, then, is much more than being functionally literate about the climate crisis. It’s shown by demonstrating that we can all read the signs of the times, and have the competences, capacity and resources – and opportunities – to respond accordingly.

Make climate change education culturally-relevant, and make sure it’s quality education for all.

Thus, as part of a “just transition” process, it’s also crucial that climate literacy ensures no one is left behind, and starts from where people are at.

In other words, the two big tasks are also two big asks – make climate change education culturally-relevant, and make sure it’s quality education for all.

Discover how you can help make change for future generations here.