Education and Climate

One year on after world governments agreed a historic proposal to tackle climate change in France, they met again in Marrakesh, Morocco, to discuss advances in the implementation of the Paris Agreement.

On the side of this COP22 meeting (7-18 November), a number of events were organized. Among these was a seminar on ‘Education and Climate’ co-organized by the Ministry of National Education and Vocational Training, the Hassan II Academy of Science and Technology, Morocco’s Higher Council for Education, Training and Scientific Research and the Research and Development Association of Morocco.

The event, which took place on 11 November in Rabat, was attended by Pierre Léna of La Main à la Pâte, who also represented the IAP Science Education/Science Literacy programme.

During the course of the one-day meeting, 20 experts in education and climate policy developed a series of recommendations (see below) that were subsequently presented at two COP22 side events in Marrakech. Among these recommendations, IAP and its member academies were called upon to assist in the “translation of scientific messages from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for teachers, students and the public, reinforcing the accessibility of these messages with the same concern for rigour, robustness, completeness and transparency of the reports themselves”.

These issues will be discussed during the IAP Science Education Programme’s Global Council next meeting, scheduled for Khartoum, Sudan, in February 2017.