Climate change education and communication in global review: tracking progress through national submissions to the UNFCCC Secretariat

Abstract

Despite recent intergovernmental commitments to advancing climate change education and communication (CCEC) internationally, there remains a lack of global data to enable tracking or target-setting on country progress. This article shares findings from an analysis of CCEC content in 377 submissions to the UNFCCC Secretariat. Submission types analyzed included National Communications reporting on recent activities, and Nationally Determined Contributions and National Adaptation Plans outlining future plans. Key findings about CCEC in primary to tertiary education, government, media, civil society, business, and public communications sectors are that: (a) while CCEC content appeared in submissions, little is currently suitable for monitoring purposes; and (b) there were notable gaps in CCEC activities, given a pronounced emphasis on cognitive knowledge over affective and action-oriented approaches. Regional variations were also found, with European countries on average including more content in relation to both Action for Climate Empowerment (ACE) elements and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicator components. Recommendations for future UNFCCC submissions on the quantity and quality of CCEC are highlighted, as well as for research and research-policy collaboration to further monitoring of CCEC implementation and progress globally.

Keywords:

• Climate change education
• climate change communication
• UNFCCC
• ACE
• SDGs
• monitoring

Coda

The research reported here aims to contribute to a growing trajectory of research-policy collaboration towards the global advancement and monitoring of quality CCEC. A newly funded six-year Monitoring and Evaluation of Climate Change Education [MECCE] (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, Canada) project involving over 80 partners and collaborators from around the world is one vehicle for extending such work, as well as the arguments and insights on progress and monitoring priorities for CCEC at sub-national, national and international levels. The MECCE⁶ project seeks to advance the collection and analysis of global data that member countries can access to support their target-setting and monitoring activities, including in UNFCCC national submissions, with an aim of increased quantity and quality of CCEC globally. Key to this work (which I have the privilege of directing), is efforts to further our shared and scholarly understandings of what constitutes effective and progressive CCEC, including in relation to diverse learning dimensions within and beyond current models and practices of CCEC, those activities of mitigation and adaption that fit with or disrupt current practices and policies for CCEC, and regional and cultural considerations. Through collaboration with the UNFCCC, UNESCO, and other partners and advisory committee members, the project is committed to working across the research-policy interface in ways that aim to support global CCEC/ACE activity and progress tracking. This, among other initiatives, and the growing momentum of CCEC within and beyond the UNFCCC system, suggests ways forward for better monitoring and more action on ACE and CCEC-related SDGs in the critical years to come.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Acknowledgements

This article is based on a desk study of CCEC commissioned by the United Nations Scientific, Cultural and Education Organization (UNESCO), in collaboration with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The subsequent report (UNESCO 2019a) can be accessed at https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000372164. Permission has been given by UNESCO for re-use of the data for this article. The guidance and input of UNESCO and UNFCCC staff including Alexander Leicht, Alison Kennedy, Adriana Valenzuela, and Livia Hollins are greatly appreciated. The desk study was led by the author; I thank Yanyu Li, Kristen Hargis, Polina Denisova, Kathleen Aikens, and Nicola Chopin for their significant contributions to data collection, analysis, and figure preparation, and anonymous reviewers for their feedback on earlier versions of this article.

Notes

1 Its linked sister conventions are the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification.

2 NCs, NDCs, and NAPs are publicly available on the UNFCCC Secretariat website.

3 The Doha Work Programme was launched in Doha, Qatar, in December 2012, to advance Article 6 of the Convention. It “sets out the scope of, and provides the basis for action on, activities related to Article 6” (UNFCCC, 2012, p. 5).

4 The UN Statistics Division (SD) regions are used for the analysis in this paper and the supplemental material. See https://unstats.un.org/unsd/methodology/m49/ for a listing of the countries in each region.

5 The results of the study point to the minimal uptake to date of national ACE strategies (only 1% of countries mentioned having ACE strategies) in response to the ACE Guidelines developed in 2016.

6 For more information on the MECCE Project, including how it intersects with intergovernmental monitoring and target-setting processes, please see https://sepn.ca/mecce/ or #mecce.