“The benefits of climate education will be fast; even spontaneous”
Ahead of COP27 and Pearson’s Sustainability Webinar, young environmental activist James Miller shares his take on the positive impact education can make on the world and what needs to be considered to achieve it.
In the run up to last year’s COP26 climate change conference I started to interact with a variety of different youth organisations that were building towards the summit. One of them was specifically focused on the issue of climate education, which wasn’t something I’d thought about much before.
My own work around the environment started early on, when I was just 13: I was really worried about the state of local wildlife, and the fact that a lot of it seemed to be in decline. To try and raise awareness of the threat, I made films, trying to make people realise how they could take steps to stop wildlife going extinct. As I grew older, I became aware of how issues like biodiversity, sustainability and climate change intersected – threatening not only wildlife but humanity.
Seeing how urgently solutions were required, I began to do more political advocacy. That work has since taken me everywhere: from the inside of Downing Street, to COP26.
For me, just over a year ago, thinking about educating the next generation did not seem like a priority, because I knew all the crucial decisions that would affect our generation would be made by people decades older than ourselves. But as I sat in on those meetings with those youth groups, and I listened, it became clear to me that actually I was quite wrong.
The power of education
When you teach young people about climate change you won’t see the benefits happen in 30 years’ time. Instead the benefits will be fast, even spontaneous. As soon as those young people move into the very starts of their careers they will start putting pressure on their businesses, and won’t work for businesses that won’t make changes. As soon as they turn 18, they will vote for parties that have ambitious climate strategies.
Immediately they will start to adopt more sustainable decisions in their daily lives. Immediately they will educate their parents. Even if they can’t vote they will get out on the streets and hold influential people to account. And that feedback will cascade across the whole of society, in a timescale of years.
I know so many young people who have come up with world-changing, innovative solutions. They’ve started organisations, or used their skills in a huge variety of ways to change the world – all before leaving secondary school.
Key things to consider next
This year’s School Report from Pearson was really useful in highlighting the desire among educators to make their schools more sustainable and to teach climate education.
They also made it clear that more needed to be done, with six in 10 teachers reporting that the current education system is not successfully developing sustainably minded citizens of the future.
While there are steps being taken across education to change this, in my view there are some key things to consider.
Firstly, how can we ensure climate education reaches beyond those studying sciences or geography. It’s great that these learners will have a good understanding but what about the broad swathe of young people who have chosen other GCSE and A Level subjects and will have no climate education whatsoever?
This is a similar situation to what we are seeing beyond education today. There are already scientists who are very well-trained, who are acutely aware of what is going on in the world, but the people in influential places who make decisions – like the politicians, bankers, investors; the people controlling the media – may not have as much of an idea, and could be less equipped to make the decisions we need.
Talk about the solutions
Another key thing is learning about the solutions. Often the focus can be on the problems, the ways the world is being destroyed, and the physical mechanisms of the warming of our planet. But that is not a great place to leave students. We need to tell the other half of the story: the half that young people are going to write themselves.
This could help to address the high levels of eco-anxiety in this country. We need to tell children about how they can involve themselves and their own lives to help solve these problems – through political engagement; through making decisions in their own lives relating to sustainability; through reducing their impact. We need to talk about how students can use their careers, and even where they are right now – their personal skills – to make a change beyond their own carbon footprint.
And of course, this is quite an ask for teachers, so ensuring there is the training and support in place for them would be crucial too.
With COP27 around the corner, it’s an exciting time for us all to think about what we can do to make a difference.
Together, we can build a brighter future.
James Miller is a climate activist and winner of a Pearson’s World Changers Award. Find him on Twitter at @JamesNaturalist or visit his website at www.kneedeepinnature.co.uk