Education for sustainable development (ESD) is the latest and thickest manifestation of the "closing circle" of policy-driven environmental education. Characterised by definitional haziness, a tendency to blur rather than lay bare inconsistencies and incompatibilities, and a cozy but ill-considered association with the globalisation agenda, the field has allowed the neoliberal marketplace worldview into the circle so that mainstream education for sustainable development tacitly embraces economic growth and an instrumentalist and managerial view of nature that goes hand in glove with an emphasis on the technical and the tangible rather than the axiological and intangible. Runaway climate change is imminent but there is widespread climate change denial, including within mainstream ESD. A transformative educational agenda in response to climate change is offered here. Recent calls for the integration of climate change education (CCE) within mainstream education for sustainable development should be resisted unless the field breaks free of the "closing circle".