Editorial | Climate crisis and education

While maintaining its policies to reduce the amount of Earth-heating gases Jamaica spews into the atmosphere, the Government should underpin these efforts by making climate change – and how to be resilient against its threats – a core element in school curricula.

The savage beating Hurricane Melissa inflicted on the western third of the island three weeks ago demands no less. For not only should Jamaicans be fully, and formally, schooled in the dangers of a world that is growing hotter, the education system has an obligation of teaching them about how they can respond appropriately.

This includes encouraging appreciation and respect for the natural environment; showing how Jamaica, and similarly vulnerable countries, might make themselves more resilient to the exigencies of a warmer planet; and exploring the areas of education, training and skills that will be vital in establishing this resilience. In other words, Jamaica’s education system must accelerate, and expand, the capabilities of the island’s workforce to exist, and successfully compete, in a global economy where green technologies will be increasingly important.

The Gleaner’s suggestion that climate-related education become a central part of Jamaica’s response to the challenges of climate change is neither unique nor new. Rather, the approach is expanding.

Earlier this month, at the ongoing COP30 climate conference in Belém, Brazil, the 27-member European Union (EU) presented their updated nationally determined contribution (NDC) to help keep the rise in the planet’s temperature by the end of the century to below 2.5 degrees Celsius, compared to the start of the industrial period. The EU’s aim is for net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to decline 66.25 per cent, and 72.5 per cent by 2035, when compared to 1990. The EU’s longer-term goal is to be net neutral in GHG emissions by 2050.

EDUCATION

The EU has declared education to be one of the platforms from which it will pursue these goals.

“The EU acknowledges that youth and children are not only particularly vulnerable to climate change, but can also act as an important agent of change that can drive ambitious climate action going forward,” the group says in its NDC policy statement.

Adds the document: “The EU recognises climate education and training as a strategic enabler for the green transition, essential for fostering an informed understanding of the climate crisis, building resilience to disinformation and creating a sustainability-skilled workforce to meet the growing demands of the growing green-tech labour market.

“Building resilience to disinformation is crucial, as it threatens climate ambition, fuels polarisation, and undermines the public support we urgently need.”

This policy by the EU 27 of using education as a “strategic enabler” in their response to the climate crisis, brings to nearly 90 countries that have undertaken to integrate climate education in school curricula. Jamaica isn’t, as yet, among them.

In this year’s update of its NDC to greenhouse gas reduction, released earlier this year, Jamaica proposes to reduce its emissions 16.3 per cent by 2030 compared to 2012 levels, and by 16.9 by 2035.

The document highlights gains being made by the island in several sectors, including the greater use of renewables in electricity generation, and new, and cleaner technologies employed in electricity production. However, it mentions no specific programme in education as part of a green pivot. Which is an oversight for a country that will, with increased frequency, experience violent storms, extreme floods and longer and unseasonal droughts.

SUBSTANTIALLY HIGHER

Hurricane Melissa left at least 45 people dead in Jamaica. Its sustained winds of 185 miles an hour damaged or destroyed 135,000 homes. Initial damage to infrastructure and private property is estimated at between US$6-7 billion. The overall cost to the economy will be substantially higher.

The storm, which crawled and meandered along Jamaica’s south coast before making a venomous U-turn into the island, displayed, scientists say, all the characteristics of a hurricane influenced and fuelled by global warming. A warmer Caribbean Sea fed its energy.

Credible science suggests that there will be others.

Jamaicans, therefore, have to be better prepared for the next one: in terms of how they can dodge its worst consequences and how the country engineers for the new and emerging environment.

The education system must be central in this exercise.

As The Gleaner suggested previously, “disaster preparedness must be embedded in the culture of schools and the education system and curricula have to be revised to incorporate climate-change resilience; local industrial linkage; and entrepreneurship for youth”.

The bottomline: climate change is making new demands on how economies do things to reverse, and adapt to the climate crisis. Which means new industries and new jobs for which Jamaicans should be educated and trained.