I don’t know about you, but since work from home started in earnest, meetings seem full of check-in questions. Don’t get me wrong, I like them. One of my favorites that comes up regularly is, who was your favorite teacher? Answers always feature people whose love and passion for their area of expertise shine through in their teaching.
Working with Marie Fargo, our Instructional Resources Coordinator, to plan a new K-2 climate change resource, I was reminded of this phenomenon. As we brainstormed ideas that connect climate change to K-2 standards, I found myself filled with memories of warm summer days in my Grandma’s flower garden, watching the hens and chicks spreading out into the pebble-covered path and the sounds of my grandfather and uncles lamenting the weather and attempting to plan that year’s corn crop. These fond memories made me focus on topics like crop production and farming, pollination, and climate change. Unsurprisingly, I prefer to focus on these topics; they make me feel warm and nostalgic, are central to my being, and are impacted by climate change.
Teachers’ best work happens when their personal interests and professional expertise align and they have the resources and support to put theory into practice.
- You need support on how to teach climate change:
Educators tend to shine when they teach about things they love and when they have support. It’s no wonder that many teachers only spend 1-2 hours a year on climate change — a subject that has and continues to be dominated by narratives of loss, sadness, guilt and culpability. Further limiting teacher’s interest in teaching climate change are the flurry of politically charged narratives and perceived lack of support for teaching the topic in anything that isn’t science.
I applaud and marvel at the teachers who have been teaching climate change for decades. We see you. However, most teachers find themselves among the majority of Americans who believe in climate change and think it should be taught in school but just aren’t sure how or where to start. This gap isn’t a result of the teachers not doing the work. It’s more systemic than that. The systems teachers use to learn about key subjects and ways to incorporate those topics into their practice are lagging behind.
- You need access to quality teaching materials that center local climate change challenges and solutions:
To teach climate change effectively, teachers need access to quality, local teaching materials, time to adapt and implement them, and ongoing support to continue the work.
Several polls have shown that educators don’t teach about climate change because they feel uninformed about it or that the science is out of their depth. Furthermore, if educators feel under-supported by their administrators in their effort to teach climate change, they are far less likely to do so.
There are many states and school districts addressing teachers’ concerns and filling needs with innovative and scalable models of climate change education. The Wisconsin Climate Education Hub was created to provide educators with quick, easy access to high-quality instructional resources to support the state’s requirement for environmental education. They are now working with Wisconsin educators to create new instructional materials centering Wisconsin-based issues and solutions. An example closer to Climate Generation’s home is in Saint Paul Public Schools (SPPS). The facilities team leads the SPPS Sustainability Program, which provides teaching materials to educators, guidance on how to jump in to support their district’s climate action plan, and supports students to lead action projects at their schools.
- You need ongoing training:
Not knowing where to get support or what materials to use to incorporate climate curriculum into your plan can be exhausting. On top of that, it can be tiring to not be connected to a community of other educators and mentors going through the same challenges you are.
Each year, Climate Generation hosts our Summer Institute for Climate Change Education – registration for our 19th year has just opened! At the Summer Institute, educators connect to a vast network of climate change professionals. They are inspired to learn new connections to the subjects they teach and to fill their virtual tote bags with instructional materials and curriculum. Professional development events, like a Summer Institute, reinvigorate educators, but they don’t solve some of the major challenges they face trying to transform their teaching practice.
Teachers need that reinvigorating spark from an event, and they also need sustained support for the long-lasting passion. It’s well known that people remain excited for about 2 weeks after a professional development event. Rather than one-off events for support, teachers require a mixed bag of options that extend throughout the year. Educators who engage in 50 or more hours of professional development from workshops, online communities, personal research, instructional coaching, and peer-to-peer working groups are far more likely to change their practice and find the support they need to sustain the change.
This is why Climate Generation offers the Teach Climate Network and regional education support. The Teach Climate Network provides year-round professional development opportunities for K-12 and nonformal educators through: monthly webinars, regular working groups, and a monthly e-newsletter with tips and tricks on teaching climate change. Our regional education work supports educators through facilitated curriculum coaching, communities of practice, and paid working groups. This year, in collaboration with our Talk Climate Program, we also offered a unique Inspiring Stories project to help educators find their personal connection to climate change.
To ignite change in how we teach about climate change, we need to help educators find their passion for climate change education. We must replace the overly simplistic narratives we’ve become accustomed to with stories of love, compassion, enthusiasm, and strength.
Teaching about climate change and moving people to take action on climate change doesn’t require a deep understanding of the greenhouse effect. To those of us teaching climate change day in and day out, we’ve learned that climate change resilience and adaptability, or the ability to bounce back from climate change impacts, is what communities need to understand and respond to the climate crises they are facing now.
There are many ways to teach about climate change that uplift the people power behind climate change solutions and center a just transition to a brighter, safer, and more equitable future. We suggest teaching activities that engage people on a personal level, weave in some hands-on exploration of climate change facts, and support action-based projects in their local communities. I encourage you to join our Teach Climate Network to get access to the many opportunities we offer to build your climate education practice.
Teaching about climate change and its connections back to farming makes me feelcloser to my family. You can read my climate story on Climate Generation’s Blog. I’m keeping my family traditions alive by continuing to learn how to best steward and tend the earth in an unpredictable future. Teaching others how to do so helps me build my community and welcome others into my world.
Lindsey Kirkland supports on-going climate change education programs for K-12 educators and public audiences. As the Education Manager, she also develops a vision for and provides strategic coordination for programs focusing primarily on professional development for teachers and informal educators. Lindsey is adjunct faculty at Hamline University and supported the development of their Climate Literacy Certificate, a contributing author of NSTA’s Connect Science Learning journal, and an active member of Climate Literacy and the Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN) and the North American Association of Environmental Education (NAAEE) Guidelines for Excellence writing team. Lindsey has served as an environmental educator with the AmeriCorps program the NJ Watershed Ambassadors, worked as a naturalist and education program coordinator for the NJ Audubon Society, and assisted in program development for museums, universities, and new nonprofit organizations in the United States and Australia. Lindsey holds a BS in Environment, Conservation and Fisheries Sciences from the University of Washington in Seattle, WA and a MEd in Science Education from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. In her spare time, Lindsey enjoys spending time with her husband and her son.
The post 3 reasons why you are burnt out teaching climate change, and how to sustain your spark appeared first on Climate Generation.
3 reasons why you are burnt out teaching climate change, and how to sustain your spark
Delegates will soon gather in the Turkish resort city of Antalya for UN climate negotiations, against a backdrop of war, energy crisis and climate extremes.
At COP31, nations will try to find agreement on various issues, including climate finance for developing countries and a global “just transition” towards a cleaner economy.
This summit is unusual due to its joint presidency, which means that Australia is leading the negotiations while Turkey hosts the conference.
Outside the formal negotiations, Turkey is also pushing its own priorities as part of a wider “action agenda”, including electrification, oceans and “green industrialisation”.
In order to track parties’ positions on key negotiating points and wider issues at COP31, Carbon Brief has analysed around 100 documents and captured them in the interactive table below.
The first column shows the countries and UN negotiating blocs, the second shows the topics up for debate and the third indicates specific issues within those topics.
The final column indicates the positions that the parties have expressed on each topic. These range from “priority” – meaning the party is likely to be pushing the issue – to “oppose”, meaning it is likely to push against it.
This is a “living document” that will be updated over the course of COP31.
Please get in touch if you would like to offer additions by emailing policy@carbonbrief.org.
Brief explanations of the key issues and jargon-filled language that permeate the talks can be found below the interactive table.
Just transition
At COP30 in Brazil in 2025, nations agreed to establish a practical mechanism to help drive a “just transition” to a low-carbon economy.
Key aspects of this “Belém-Antalya mechanism” (BAM) – often referred to as the “just transition mechanism” (JTM) – were agreed during the June climate negotiations this year, but many details are missing and dividing lines remain between parties.
Parties have disagreed about the scope of the mechanism and whether it should be tied to the provision of finance.
Nevertheless, following progress in June within the “just transition work programme” (JTWP), civil society groups highlighted that getting the mechanism up and running is a “key expected outcome” from COP31.
Climate finance
Climate finance is always a highly contested issue at UN climate negotiations.
Developing countries have successfully pushed for a “work programme” on climate finance to feature on the conference agenda.
These parties see this programme as a way to pressure developed countries into providing more funding from their public coffers, specifically under Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement. Some are even proposing a “burden sharing” arrangement for climate-finance provision.
This comes against a backdrop of major donors cutting their aid budgets and the Trump administration in the US pressuring multilateral development banks (MDBs) to drop their climate objectives.
Developed countries, which have traditionally been responsible for providing finance, would prefer to keep a broader focus on issues such as improving access to existing finance and broadening the range of donors. Some developing countries, such as small-island states, also support these goals.
Nations have also been discussing Article 2.1c of the Paris Agreement under the “Veredas dialogue”. This focuses on making all global “financial flows” consistent with climate action.
Countries have different views about what this involves, with developing countries again hoping to keep the focus on developed countries’ responsibilities to financially support them.
Adaptation and mitigation
At negotiations in June, parties were unable to agree on the details of a “global goal on adaptation” (GGA), which is intended to drive climate adaptation worldwide.
Having agreed at COP30 on a list of 59 “indicators” – ways to assess progress towards the GGA – nations now need to refine these before COP32 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This is a highly technical process that involves a taskforce working out how to use and track these indicators.
Broadly, developing countries stress the importance of finance to fund adaptation efforts, rather than simply to track progress. They also want reassurances about a pledge made last year to “triple adaptation finance”.
At the June climate negotiations, negotiators also failed to make any progress when discussing the mitigation work programme (MWP) – the only formal agenda item that concerns cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
Among other things, parties disagreed on whether the MWP should continue running over the next few years, or simply be brought to a close.
Global stocktake and NDCs
Back in 2023, the first “global stocktake” (GST) of the Paris Agreement set out the state of climate action and what needed to be done to set the world on course.
On mitigation, nations agreed to a package of measures, including “transitioning away from fossil fuels”, tripling renewable energy and “halting and reversing deforestation” by 2030.
Some of these outcomes remain contentious among certain parties, particularly large, developing countries and those with economies that rely on fossil-fuel exports.
Developing countries have persistently argued that they need more climate finance to implement the global stocktake outcomes.
Parties were meant to update their climate plans under the Paris Agreement, informed by the first global stocktake, by 2025. These plans, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs), cover the period out to 2035.
So far, only 150 parties – responsible for three-quarters of global emissions – have submitted new NDCs.
Iran, Vietnam, Egypt and Argentina are among those without new NDCs – and the US has withdrawn its climate plan under the Trump administration.
Some parties, such as the EU, have stressed the need for countries to submit their new NDCs ahead of COP31 – and to ensure they are aligned with the 1.5C temperature limit.
COP31 will also see the launch of the second global stocktake, which will conclude in 2028.
Action agenda and other issues
Turkey will be pushing its “action agenda” priorities at COP31, including global targets for electrification, reducing waste and reducing building-sector emissions.
(The Australian “presidency of negotiations” is intending to pursue a “cover text” decision at COP31 that may capture some of these wider targets, such as the electrification goal.)
The action agenda is meant to provide a complementary track to the formal negotiations, where governments and non-state actors can advance specific, real-world solutions.
A new COP31 presidency effort dubbed the “climate implementation bridge” is also meant to complement these ambitions by turning NDC goals into an “investable project portfolio”
Some parties have explicitly signalled their support for various elements beyond the formal negotiations, in the run-up to COP31.
For example, a joint letter signed by 105 parties called for COP31 to “put the ocean at the heart of climate action” by embedding ocean-based climate action in the UNFCCC architecture.
The post Interactive: Who wants what at the COP31 climate change summit appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Interactive: Who wants what at the COP31 climate change summit
Prepared by a coalition of nine Western Australian union, industry, conservation, and community organisations—including UnionsWA, the Conservation Council WA, and the Smart Energy Council—the WA Clean Energy, Jobs & Industry Plan provides a practical roadmap to transform Western Australia into a clean energy powerhouse while creating thousands of secure local jobs.
Western Australia stands at a pivotal crossroads: lead the global clean energy economy or watch investment, future industries, and secure jobs go elsewhere. The WA Clean Energy, Jobs & Industry Plan outlines a transformative blueprint to harness the state’s world-class solar and wind resources. Discover how legislated renewable targets, green iron manufacturing, and a dedicated regional training strategy can generate tens of thousands of local jobs, lower household bills, and build a resilient, net-zero future for all Western Australians.
WA needs a clear and forward-thinking plan if it is going to become a competitive renewable energy powerhouse and maintain its economic strength through the energy transition.
“Western Australians know a faster renewable energy transition will lower their household expenses and prevent harmful climate pollution. But the community also needs clear direction to en