Education, a major element in the fight against climate change

The virtual meeting ‘Climate empowerment: education to drive ambition’ was held on the importance of education as a tool to promote critical thinking, raise public awareness about the problem of climate change and encourage their engagement.

The meeting is one of the activities of the  Joint regional workshop organised by the EUROCLIMA+ cooperation programme, the LEDSLAC platform, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB).

The event brought together participants of the EUROCLIMA+ programme and specialists in the field from the Dominican Republic, the Ministry of the Environment of Chile, the Ministry of the Environment of Uruguay, the Ministry of Education of Colombia, UNESCO, and ECLAC who have highlighted the importance of incorporating the Action for Climate Empowerment (ACE) approach into national public policies and nationally determined contributions (NDCs). In this way, the climate challenge can be tackled with greater ambition thanks to the transforming capacity of citizens.

The ACE is a cross-cutting proposal in public policy that seeks to generate and articulate capacities and that promotes actions to face climate change. This proposal requires joining forces between all sectors, areas, and institutions, and at all scales. To reduce the impact of climate change, proactivity and collaboration from both civil society and the public sector are necessary, and actions aimed at empowering citizens, at their ability to come up with proposals and solutions that promote positive changes, are promoted.

Several Latin American countries have already included the ACE in their policies in nationally determined contributions (NDC), commitments of states towards achieving the climate objectives established in the Paris Agreement, and in Long-Term Climate Strategies.

Participating Latin American countries have been able to share experiences in educational and training programmes , promoting public participation, social awareness-raising campaigns, access to information policies, and international cooperation. This exercise has also highlighted the importance of the ACE approach in designing public plans and policies.

The relevance of education as an area for construction and collaboration in the training of citizens to communicate with the public sector and provide alternative solutions to common climate issues has been discussed.

Finally, the European cooperation programme EUROCLIMA+ has presented the new initiative coordinated by the International and Ibero-American Foundation for Administration and Public Policies (FIIAPP), called Communities of Learning Practices, future spaces for the exchange of relevant experiences on ACE.