Education for sustainable development crucial to tackle climate change

‘Education for Sustainable Development is a key means through which education can build a global lobby for effective action, showing people that, as conscious consumers and responsible citizens, their concrete actions can contribute to lasting solutions to such challenges as climate change,' said Mark Richmond, Director for the Coordination of United Nations Priorities in Education.

Climate change is one of the most urgent challenges of sustainable development and a key theme of the UNESCO-led UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development 2005-2014 (UN DESD 2005-2014).  

The DESD aims to integrate the principles, values, and practices of sustainable development into all aspects of education and learning, a goal reaffirmed at the UNESCO World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development held in Bonn in April 2009. 

Mr Richmond, speaking at UNESCO's International Seminar on Climate Change Education held this July in Paris, said there was a clear need for interdisciplinary and intersectoral cooperation in the field of ESD and SD and that the economic dimensions must not be forgotten.  

Interviewed by UNESCO on the occasion of COP15 and also a speaker at the July conference, climate change education specialist Mr Philippe Saugier echoed Mr Richmond's views.  

‘Education in the twenty-first century must forge the global consciousness and identity. Education for sustainable development (ESD) is the shaping of the global citizen; conscious of the challenges that loom over our shared future and capable of addressing them,' said Mr Saugier who is the Education Coordinator of the CarboSchools Project.  

The project brings together carbon science researchers, secondary school teachers and young people to learn about local and global impacts of climate change and research on the topic and act locally to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.