I think everyone should have the chance to attend a COP. 

The annual United Nations Climate Change Conference should be accessible to everyone because the decisions that are made at the conferences affect everyone. Overall, I had an amazing time my first COP. I left feeling inspired, invigorated, and with the hope of attending again in the future. I have so many ideas for lesson plans, interdisciplinary units, and guest speakers that I would like to share with my students.

However, one disappointment I had at the conference was the lack of other teachers.

Granted, this is only my personal experience and I do not have any actual statistics to determine the number of teachers that attended COP28. But the fact that over and over again education was touted as such an important aspect of climate justice, it was disheartening to not see many teachers included in the conversation. Even when I attended the education-centered RewirED Summit, most of the people I met there worked in education policy, as professors, in education-focused NGOs, among other professions. Of course, all important and relevant to climate education. However, I wonder why I did not meet other teachers– maybe I was just looking in the wrong places? Perhaps, this event happening while many schools are in session made it difficult for teachers to attend? Maybe the opportunity to be a delegate was not shared with many teachers? I left feeling confused.

Now, why does this matter? As an educator I am partial to the power of education.

But I learned some data at COP28 that helps support my opinions. Climate change is a powerful force that is already shaping and shifting lives, industries, and communities. In the United States, the Inflation Reduction Act is a law that is described as “the most significant action Congress has taken on clean energy and climate change in the nation’s history.” The law is investing billions of dollars to create more green jobs and reduce CO2 emissions. The University of Massachusetts Amherst has estimated that, over the next decade, 9 millions new jobs will be created. It is possible that students today will have millions of jobs to choose from in the future, but will they be ready? Many of the new green jobs being created are predicted to be highly-specialized and require new skills to adapt with climate change demands. 

If our students are going to be ready to be leaders in green jobs they need to be finding success in primary and secondary education before they move on to higher ed. Current reports in the US show people struggling with literacy, with a current 36 million adults lacking basic reading, writing, and math skills. According to the US National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), over 30% of US students are below basic reading levels in 4th grade. Student performance is impacted by factors such as race, socioeconomic status, and parent’s academic education and literacy. On national tests, reading and math scores are dropping. Now, it is my opinion that standardized tests cannot give us a full picture of the students abilities, but the numbers are troubling nonetheless. 

I list all of these concerns in order to say: if climate justice and these emerging green jobs are so important, education should be equally as important.

Our students are not going to be able to complete cutting edge work if they are struggling with the fundamentals of reading, writing, and math. If we are truly investing in the future of our students and of humanity on this planet, we need to be investing in primary and secondary education. With new laws and policies world wide addressing green jobs and environmental protection, we also need to be investing in equitable education so that our students can pickup the baton and race forward. Our students are strong and smart and they need our support. It is our responsibility to help develop their climate change knowledge, climate justice awareness, and green skills. I get that investing in elementary math and science programs may not feel as flashy as installing solar panels. Or that investing in middle school social studies curriculum is not as exciting as assembling a National Climate Task Force. But my argument is that you cannot have one without the other. At the end of the day, we all need to be on the same team. I’m rooting for our students, and I hope that next time I am at COP I will see more students and teachers.

Sofía Cerkvenik is a social studies educator and sports equity activist in Saint Paul. Sofía was adopted from Lima, Perú and grew up in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She received her B.A. in History with a minor in Asian Languages and Literatures and her M.Ed in Social Studies with an emphasis on Social Justice at the University of Minnesota. Sofía believes that exploring various windows and mirrors in the classroom is imperative to establish greater understanding, empathy, and action among students. Sofía has had an opportunity to do just that through various study abroad experiences including the US Department of State’s Critical Language Scholarship Program, participating once in Dalian, China and once in Changchun, China, as a Fulbright Research Scholar in 2022, and this winter as a COP28 delegate.

Sofía is a Climate Generation Window Into COP delegate for COP28. To learn more, we encourage you to meet the full delegation and subscribe to the Window Into COP digest.

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All Hands on Deck for Team Climate