6th Global RCE Conference

Yoko MochizukiSection of Education for Sustainable DevelopmentUNESCO

Climate Change Education for Sustainable Development

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UNESCO Climate Change Initiative

Climate Science and Knowledge

Climate Change Education for SustainableDevelopment (CCESD)

Climate Change, Culture and Biological

Diversity and Cultural Heritage

Climate Change, Ethics, Social and Human Sciences

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Mandate

• Article 6 of the UNFCCC addresses education, training and public awareness and access to information in relation to climate change whereby UNESCO should assist countries to implement activities in the area of education.

• The Bonn Declaration, requests UNESCO to “intensify efforts and initiatives to put climate change education higher on the international agenda, in the framework of the DESD, in the context of UNESCO’s strategy for action on climate change, and as a component of UN-wide action.”

• The UNESCO International Seminar on Climate Change Education (2009) requested UNESCO to “accelerate the mainstreaming of ESD and with it CCE in all its components, in all sectors and levels of education, public awareness and training worldwide

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Rationale

Changing climate is making it harder to deliver quality education and to keep learners safe.

Education offers an untapped opportunity to combat climate change.

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Focus of UNESCO’s CCESD Programme

Strengthen the capacity of Member States to providequality climate change education with a focus on:

Secondary school level In the area of policy development, curriculum review

and renewal, training of teachers and other educational personnel

In SIDS and Africa

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Climate Change Education with ESD Lens (by Arjen Wals)

• Integrative – not only the ecological and the environmental, not only the present, not only the local, not only the human world

• Critical - questioning continuous economic growth and consumerism and associated lifestyles

• Transformative – exploration of alternative lifestyles (e.g. ‘voluntary simplicity’), values and systems that break from existing ones that are inherently unsustainable

• Contextual –taking into account the local context

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For educators: Informative and Primarily Environmental Work

A Starter’s Guidebook,  

introducing the scientific causes and effects, the impact on society, policies and educational responses to climate change to teachers and curriculum developers

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For youth:Integrative, Critical, Transformative & Contexualized Work

UNESCO/UNEP YouthXChange guidebook on climate change an lifestyles

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Global CCE-related Platforms

UNESCO CCE Clearinghouse

Sandwatch http://www.sandwatch.ca/

Climate Frontlines http://www.climatefrontlines.org/

Connect4Climate (C4C) http://www.connect4climate.org/about_c4c

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Climate frontlines

An Internet forum “On the Frontlines of Climate Change” reaches more than 50,000 people worldwide and connects islanders from the Atlantic, Caribbean, Indian and Pacific sub regions. It solicits inputs from small island and indigenous communities concerning local level observations of climate change impacts, and their efforts to cope and adapt

http://www.climatefrontlines.org/

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Sandwatch

Sandwatch seeks to change the lifestyle and habits of children, youth and adults on a community wide basis, to adapt to climate change by building ecosystem resilience, and to develop awareness of the fragile nature of the marine and coastal environment and the need to use it wisely.