The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), through its Article 6, and the Convention's Kyoto Protocol, through its Article 10 (e), call on governments to develop and implement educational programmes on climate change and its effects. In particular, Article 6 of the Convention, which addresses the issue of climate…

This article makes the case for the education sector an untapped opportunity to combat climate change. It sets forth a definition of Climate Change Education for Sustainable Development that is comprehensive and multidisciplinary and asserts that it must not only include relevant content knowledge on climate change, environmental and social…

Chapter 36 of Agenda 21, a key document of the 1992 Earth Summit, emphasised reorienting education towards sustainable development. While two of the Rio conventions, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), developed communication, education and public awareness (CEPA)…

Incidences of disaster and climate change impacts are rising globally. Disaster risk reduction and climate change education are two educational responses to present and anticipated increases in the severity and frequency of hazards. They share significant complementarities and potential synergies, the latter as yet largely unexploited. Three…

Traditional communities remain a dominant feature in the Pacific and are key players in land and sea management. Fostering improved climate literacy is therefore essential to equip communities to respond to the current and future challenges posed by climate change in the region. Increased understanding and development of skills to respond to the…

This article features the University for Peace (UPEACE), an international academic institution that was created as a Treaty Organization within the framework of the United Nations (Resolution 35/55-1980) to support the central peace and security objectives of the United Nations. UPEACE has carried out postgraduate programs since its inception in…

This article is an overview of sustainability efforts in US law schools. It describes two sets of drivers for these efforts--inside and outside the legal profession. Drivers from within the legal profession include the American Bar Association as well as several state and local bar associations; law firms and other law organisations; and current…

Between the Inter-governmental Conference on Environmental Education at Tbilisi in 1977 and the Fourth International Conference on Environmental Education at Ahmedabad in 2007, our conception of the challenge posed by the global crises of climate change, environmental destruction, social disintegration, poverty, natural resources exhaustion and…

This article presents the process of widespread teacher training based on the Earth Charter in the municipal area of Sao Paulo, Brazil, South America. This effort diffused knowledge of the Earth Charter through 800 educators and by means of them, to one million children. This process was developed by the team from UMAPAZ--Open University of the…

This article describes a pioneering initiative of a Brazilian university to introduce sustainability in all undergraduate curricula and in its operations. The Methodist University Sustainable Program was developed in a bottom-up way and began with the introduction of sustainability as a core value in the Institutional Political-Pedagogical Plan,…

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…

This article introduces Sustainability Frontiers, a newly formed, international, not-for-profit alliance of sustainability and global educators dedicated to challenging and laying bare the assumptions, exposing the blind spots, and transgressing the boundaries of mainstream understandings of sustainability-related education. Among the orthodoxies…

This article features the Centre for Environment Education (CEE) Sustainable Development Programme, a two-week course designed for university students from a wide variety of disciplines, with an interest in sustainability and cross-cultural studies. The two-week programme provides cross-disciplinary understanding and practical experience of…

In his speech at the inaugural session of the 4th International Conference on Environmental Education, Ahmedabad, India, in November 2007, Charles Hopkins, one of the "founding fathers" of environmental education (EE) at the 1st International Conference on Environmental Education in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 1977, reflected on how EE has progressed…