With over 190 nations participating in this year’s UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP) in Belém, Brazil, assessments show national commitments remain insufficient to meet emissions reduction targets by 2050. Mitigating climate change requires collective effort, and building effective climate solutions that leave no one behind demands meaningful participation from all members of society. However, collective action continues to lag behind the urgency of the problem, and we still feel woefully un(der)prepared to tackle the climate crisis.
It’s not for lack of information. Our feeds are flooded with must–knows about plastic pollution, habitat loss, and rising temperatures. Yet this awareness has not translated into more sustainable daily routines, consumption patterns, or systemic transformations.
Education is often cited as the key solution to this challenge. But what if the way we teach about climate is part of the problem?
Teaching about what’s happening to the planet is not enough.
In the age of Tiktok, decreased attention spans and instant gratification require different approaches to education. Education that focuses on what people know about the issue—rather than on how they feel about it or act upon it—is destined to fail at empowering people to make a difference. Even when these approaches succeed at raising awareness, they are insufficient to cultivate agency, build self–confidence, and foster empathy—all pre-requisites of meaningful shifts in individual behaviors.
The complexity of climate change requires us to move beyond these learning methods that focus only on what people know about an issue. Such lessons are often passive and detached from our daily lives, feeling abstract and distant. When climate knowledge drifts too far from lived local experiences, people become observers of the problems they feel like they can’t touch, overlooking the ones they can.
What’s more, the sheer scale of global challenges exacerbated or brought about by climate change can induce anxiety and feelings of helplessness or despair. Some research shows that around 70% of youth from around the world are worried about the climate—a phenomenon known as climate or eco–anxiety—which often results in disengagement and political fatigue.
If we want to build climate resilient, sustainable societies, we have to go beyond teaching “to know” towards teaching “to act” through practical, context–specific guidance. It means empowering people to make well–informed decisions, engage critically with climate issues, and participate in climate solutions. Without it, the risk is that climate education will resemble learning music notes without picking up the instrument.
The question is then: what does climate education that empowers look like?
Effective climate education grounds learning in the real issues we face every day, giving people a sense of purpose, fostering empathy and motivation to act. It brings communities into the heart of education, engaging the whole society in the learning process. Seeing how everyone has a role to play in building sustainable futures fosters collective responsibility and capacity to address these challenges. When education engages communities, it becomes a shared effort that empowers the whole of society to act together towards common goals.
Practical examples of such action–oriented, community–based climate education can be found in a recent publication by the United Nations University (UNU). It presents 10 projects from around the world that empower people of various ages to co–create solutions to pressing sustainability challenges. UNU has also developed a toolkit and guidelines for educators, with real–world examples from the Regional Centers of Expertise on ESD (RCEs). The Global RCE Network, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, is a multi–stakeholder global network that spans four geographic regions (Africa and the Middle East, the Americas, Asia and the Pacific, and Europe) and functions as a living laboratory of innovative education for sustainable futures.
Transformative change is impossible without government support
But education systems cannot do this alone, and education cannot be transformed without strong policy support. Unfortunately, despite recognition that it must play a key role in solving the climate crisis, education remains underrepresented in major policy frameworks, highlighting the critical gaps in its implementation in reality. Recent research shows that 47% of national curriculums of 100 countries make no reference to climate change. Teachers also lack the confidence to teach climate change and require more institutional support, resources, and incentives to drive transformative change.
This is particularly important as education systems are among the most vulnerable to climate shocks. In 2024, at least 242 million students globally have experienced climate–related school disruptions, with 74% of those affected located in low– and lower–middle–income countries. Thus, as one of the greatest threat multipliers, climate change continues deepening the global learning crisis, threatening the right to education and sustainability of future economies.
Therefore, with the new round of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC 3.0) on their way, education must be meaningfully integrated into national climate strategies, including planning, financing, and implementation processes. Unless governments start prioritizing transformative climate education, humanity risks continuing to live in the paradox of the informed but passive observer: aware enough to worry about the planet but not empowered enough to take action.
