17 October 2024
In the final Global Thematic Dialogue for 2024, participants considered the leadership role universities must play in supporting the next generation of climate and sustainability leaders.
About the sessions
In collaboration with Monash University (Australia) the online dialogue drew on experts and leaders in youth empowerment from within higher education, as well as youth representatives and students from universities around the world. Participants considered how the higher education sector can develop and deliver the skills needed for current and future leaders in climate action, as well as provide opportunities for integrating youth perspectives into decision-making.
Open to all, the event was delivered across two hour-long sessions to capture all time-zones. The event brought a diverse, global audience together in the youth space, attracting interest from 87 universities and organisations, across 27 countries.
Short provocations, insights, and case-studies were followed by a wider discussion. Across the two sessions, participants heard presentations from: Hailey Campbell Co-Executive Director of Care About Climate; Belinda Davis, PhD candidate at Monash University, Australia; Dr Bill Finnegan, Sustainability Education and Research Manager at the University of Oxford, UK; Angela Le and Hamish Teasdale part of the founding team of the UNSW Student Energy Chapter, UNSW Australia; Dr Amy Munro-Faure, Head of Education and Student Engagement at Cambridge Zero, University of Cambridge, UK; Ritah Nakanjako, PhD candidate and Sustainability Champion at the University of Bristol, UK; Dr Mark Ortiz, Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and faculty member within the Institute of Energy and the Environment and the Social Science Research Institute at Penn State University, USA; Dr Laura Riuttanen, Lecturer in Atmospheric Sciences at University of Helsinki, Finland, and Academic Lead for micro-credential programme in sustainability, UNA EUROPA European University; Associate Professor Lara Saguisag, Georgiou Chair in Children’s Literature and Literacy in the Department of Teaching and Learning, New York University, USA. Dr Alemu Addisu, Assistant Professor at Mekelle University, Ethiopia.
Two highly accomplished youth leaders led the sessions: Hailey Campbell of Care About Climate, USA (Session 1) and Isabelle Zhu-Maguire, a PhD candidate at the Australian National University, Australia (Session 2). We would like to extend our gratitude to Associate Professor Susie Ho of Monash University, Australia.
In keeping with other events within the Global Thematic Dialogue Series in 2024, the theme and central questions spanned both sessions, yet the breadth of conversation across the day highlighted the broad spectrum of work that is being undertaken globally in the student and youth space. Participants considered the roadblocks faced to bring youth and student voices into focus, within both domestic and international contexts. The discussion emphasised the importance of inclusive and equitable global dialogue. Another focus was the desire to work across disciplines within institutions, as well as to work across different institutions in a more globally coordinated manner. Participants also considered the importance of student wellbeing and mental health given the global challenge of addressing climate change.
Summary of case studies
Hailey Campbell, Co-Executive Director, Care About Climate
Drawing on her experience with Care About Climate, an organisation that provides training on how to advocate effectively at UNFCCC COP events, Hailey Campbell considered the importance of policy training that is empowering and inclusive of groups often excluded from the conversation, such as women and those from non-English-speaking backgrounds. Care About Climate enables this by ensuring that the training is made available in seven different languages, and by training young women on how to understand and provide recommendations on their own country’s national climate commitments. Hailey contextualised her work with Care About Climate, explaining her previous experience in advocating for a change in policy in the USA. Hailey emphasised the need to work collaboratively with negotiators, and to build relationships with those who may not, yet, understand the importance of youth and inclusion, in order to keep pushing towards change.
Belinda Davis, PhD student, Monash University
Belinda Davis, a PhD student in the Education, Environment and Sustainability Research Group at Monash University, presented a set of educational ‘steps’ for fostering transformative education in the context of dangerous times. Belinda’s research, which is driven by a passion to determine if education can be transformative in the context of climate hazards, has led her on a journey to answer two key questions: Firstly, what is transformative education? Secondly, how do transformative education outcomes occur? Her research draws upon relational approaches to support socially transformative education. Her analysis of transformative education, in the context of climate and geophysical hazards, included a literature review of 45 education cases delivered across the globe, and has resulted in a synthesised set of 10 ‘steps’ (transformative education qualities). These ‘steps’ take shape within, and across, a rising relational elevation of individual, collaborative and relational spheres of influence for transformative social-environmental change. The steps depict how we can create socially transformative education through enhanced individual self-belief, critical reflection, affective hope and socialised reflexive practices that can engender an ethical sense of care towards people, place and planet. Ultimately, education can be genuinely transformative when educational outcomes go beyond institutionalised objectives and accreditation and ‘step up’ towards influencing social-environmental change. This led to the following provocations: 1) How is higher education incentivising relational approaches that go beyond formal accreditation? 2) How is higher education involving students in the development of knowledge frameworks and genuine strategic partnerships that foster real-world transformative social-environmental change and social justice for climate action?
Dr Bill Finnegan, Sustainability Education and Research Manager, University of Oxford
Dr Bill Finnegan works at the University of Oxford: within the University’s sustainability team, leading work on the curriculum priority of the Sustainability Strategy; within the Department of Education working on a research project called the ETC Hub; and also within the Department for Continuing Education. Bill’s case study was that of a new extra-curricular program that has been developed for undergraduate students, called the Vice Chancellor’s Colloquium. This program sits within the Department for Continuing Education, and has been centred around climate change since its inception last year. The Colloquium was initiated by the Vice Chancellor of the University of Oxford, who was interested in broadening the curriculum for undergraduate students at the university. Bill drew attention to the fact that climate change requires working laterally across different disciplines, which means building interdisciplinary skills within institutions. The Vice Chancellor’s Colloquium, through the theme of climate change, brings together scholars from different disciplines to respond to the same questions about the causes, impacts, and solutions to climate change. Two-hundred undergraduate students participated last year, with a focus on critical thinking and communication. Finally, using the metaphor of cooking to illustrate his provocation, Bill considered what interdisciplinarity means.
Angela Le & Hamish Teasdale, founding team members, UNSW Student Energy Chapter, UNSW Australia
Angela Le and Hamish Teasdale, representing Student Energy, UNSW Sydney, advocated for higher education institutions to foster and embrace more inter-faculty collaboration. Angela suggested that undergraduate students often become ‘stuck’ within their silos, and there is an opportunity for educators to discuss the scope for studying within different faculties. Hamish provided an example of the energy industry, which is often seen as being primarily engineering-focussed, however, is increasingly relying on a broader range of skills and disciplines. Angela and Hamish explained that Student Energy UNSW (which is part of a wider network of Student Energy Chapters around the world (encompassing 50,000 students across 120 countries) aims to bring education and industry stakeholders together, leveraging the diverse skillsets of future leaders to effectively progress the renewable energy transition.
Angela also drew attention to UNSW Sydney’s Nexus program, which allows for knowledge-sharing across disciplines and faculties, and also talked about the work of the Digital Grid Futures Institute at UNSW Sydney, which is currently engaged in a project to map out different career pathways available within the energy sector.
Dr Amy Munro-Faure, Head of Education and Student Engagement at Cambridge Zero
Dr Amy Munro-Faure, provided an overview of some of her recent work. Amy explained that the remit of Cambridge Zero is to maximise the University’s contributions toward achieving net-zero emissions through four pillars: research; education; engagement; and decarbonisation.
Focussing on the ‘education’ pillar, Amy highlighted the aim to embed sustainability within national and international education systems. This is done through: the University’s own teaching practices; co-curricular programs for its students; and through the school examination board (OCR), within Cambridge University Press. OCR draws on academic expertise to consider what young people are going to need in the future in climate-related careers (for example, pathways into engineering).
Amy also spoke to an international climate literacy program, recently launched in India, called Cambridge Climate Quest. The program has been taken up by 10,000 secondary-school-aged participants and has been written and quality-assured by Indian climate experts at the University of Cambridge. The program may be replicated in other countries in the future.
A youth-voice project led by Cambridge Zero and The University of Bath, ActNowFilm, platforms the voices of young people at UNFCCC COP events. The project demonstrates that young people have the capacity to have nuanced and challenging conversations with experts in the field, and highlights that youth voices are both credible and essential voices within climate negotiations.
Ritah Nakanjako, PhD candidate and Sustainability Champion, the University of Bristol
Ritah Nakanjako is currently undertaking a PhD in climate change adaptation, and interventions around African cities. Ritah is also a Sustainability Champion at the University, where students are at the forefront of advocating for climate action and sustainability both within and outside of the institution. Placing an emphasis on advocacy and negotiation, and collaborative work with staff across faculties and research institutes, the Sustainability Champions program encourages sustainability and climate change topics to be embedded within education offerings. The Sustainability Champions also engage staff at a departmental level, focusing on their Climate Action Plans, and how to reduce each department’s carbon footprint across the year. As part of the program, Ritah has been facilitating Climate Fresk workshops – an international tool designed to build climate literacy though card-based discussion. The Sustainability Champions at the University are also working closely with the working closely with the University of Bristol Students' Union to develop a ‘climate of care’ manifesto, to ensure that student voices are included and translated into institutional policies at the University of Bristol.
Dr Mark Ortiz, Assistant Professor Department of Geography, Pennsylvania State University (PSU)
Dr Mark Ortiz, outlined his research on the evolution of youth action within the UNFCCC COP process, and provided an introduction to climate initiatives at the University. Drawing on his long-term research, Mark described the history of youth involvement within the international climate policy process, which could be traced back to the first Summit in Brazil in 1992, and was formalised through YOUNGO in 2009. Mark highlighted the rhetoric that often accompanies youth engagement and activism, which has led to the growing visibility of youth movements (for example, through Greta Thunberg’s school strikes), and posed the question: ‘how do we broaden the story of youth climate action, in terms of those contexts and geographies that might be left out of the mainstream and historical narrative?’
Mark also founded the Global Youth Storytelling and Research Lab, envisioned as a collaborative research and storytelling ecosystem. The Lab connects youth advocates within Penn State University and from around the world, who are working on climate and environmental justice as well as other intersectional issues. The Lab is active in supporting policy work, outreach education, and multimedia storytelling, to explore new ways to engage audiences.
Penn State University sent a delegation to COP28 in Dubai in 2023, with representatives speaking on panels that explored the role of higher education institutions in the climate conversation. While at COP28, Mark undertook research in mapping youth protests. The University also has ongoing initiatives, such as hosting a session for students around the COP 29 negotiations in Baku, Azerbaijan. This session aims to develop student understanding of, and fluency in, these global policy processes, and to encourage students to track COP 29 negotiation outcomes. Mark also discussed the annual Climate Solutions Symposium at the University, which brings together academic and non-academic stakeholders to consider climate solutions together.
Dr Laura Riuttanen, Lecturer at the Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research (INAR), University of Helsinki
Dr Laura Riuttanen, described her role in developing climate education in Finland through a network called Climate University. The network includes 28 higher education institutions across Finland (which accounts for the majority of universities in the country) committed to educating active, sustainability makers in society and business. Network members have cross-institutional study agreements, meaning all students from all member institutions can take climate courses from each curricula for free, as part of their degree. The courses are available online, and, as well as being cross-institutional, are also multidisciplinary. Laura explained that the work of Climate University extends to a global student exchange, enabling global networking and dialogue between students from around the world.
Climate University is offering a new program, a specialisation in climate expertise, for people working in the public or private sector. Delivered over two years, the course is designed to build skills and provide a qualification to work as a climate expert in different sectors of society.
Associate Professor Lara Saguisag, Georgiou Chair in Children’s Literature and Literacy in the Department of Teaching and Learning, New York University (NYU)
Dr Lara Saguisag works with aspiring and practicing K-12 teachers and students to identify good practices in integrating diverse and culturally responsive children’s books in curricula and classrooms. She also provides techniques to encourage critical engagement with literary texts. As part of this work, Lara has designed a unit focussed on literature that considers issues of climate and environmental justice. This work was driven by a view that many students are concerned and anxious about climate change, however they don’t have resources to draw on. Lara reflected that many teachers in the US do not feel they are prepared to teach climate change, or are restricted by particular determinations in each of the States. With an awareness that climate education in the US is predominantly found in science subjects within schools, Lara’s work aims to emphasise the place of literary studies, and, more broadly, the humanities and climate education. This places a lens onto climate change as a sociopolitical crisis that requires a just transformation of social and political systems, and highlights narratives of marginalised voices and perspectives.
Lara described a cognitive dissonance in the plethora of children's books that celebrate and encourage protest, however there are many examples of protest being dismissed as childish, ineffective, disruptive, even criminal. To this end, Lara posed the question: ‘how can children's literature account for the intertwined crises of climate change and political repression?’
Dr Alemu Addisu, Assistant Professor at Mekelle University
Dr Alemu Addisu was unable to join the Dialogue, however, a short summary provided by Alemu is included here: ‘When we talk about youth, we should immediately think about universities. When dealing with future climate leaders, we should stay in universities. Thinking about the future entails considering the skills and knowledge that our younger generation is gaining from universities. We should also consider intergenerational climate justice. Our kids require more practical skills in climate leadership, such as negotiation, policy development, and climate governance. The classroom and textbook are insufficient to understand the most complex global climate politics. Climate education needs to include more practical sessions into its curriculum. The difficulty with practical sessions is that it needs additional resources that are not available in universities.’
A huge thank you to those who participated, presented, shared their thoughts, and connected over the course of the two sessions. We would also like to extend our gratitude to Associate Professor Susie Ho of Monash University, Gavin Choong, UN Youth Australia and session moderators Hailey Campbell and Isabelle Zhu-Maguire.
