Monitoring Progress on Climate Change Education With Global Indicators

• In Event: Research-Policy Collaborations for Climate Communication and Education

Abstract

Robust global measures of the quality and quantity of climate communication and education (CCE) can help provide needed impetus to the significantly greater deployment that is required to confront the ongoing climate crisis. The absence of comprehensive and facilitative global indicators and datasets on CCE, lessens the ability to adequately inform processes based on a larger picture of the state of the art and development of CCE. Consequently, decision-makers and stakeholders at the sub-national, national, and international levels have little information to effectively influence, change, or hold governments accountable in the provision of CCE at a local or global scale. At the same time, the importance of tracking change and setting national or international benchmarks for relevant fields in society has rapidly increased in its importance. These measurements became central for 1) ensuring desired levels of quality and quantity in the field of consideration, 2) informing governance processes on several levels, and 3) raising public awareness around CCE.

The MECCE Project has developed a suite of global CCE indicators with accompanying datasets, to support national benchmarking and intergovernmental policy dialogue. In the first stage of work, over 150 international data sources were identified and, following careful review, 2-3 datasets for each of Primary/ Secondary Education, Higher Education, Training, Public Awareness, Public Participation, Public Access to Information were selected for further development. At the same time these components of CCE were systematically mapped and critical points for effective monitoring were identified. These two streams were combined and indicators were developed based on a set of criteria including: geographic coverage, temporal scope, disaggregation, accessibility, cost, reliability, validity, impact, holistic (cognitive, psychosocial, action learning dimensions), climate change approach (mitigation vs. adaptation), and indicator type (i.e., where within the mapping of the CCE component the indicator monitor: input, output, process, outcome).

The resulting nine indicators (with more under development) were released in 2023 and are available on an interactive data platform (https://mecce.ca/data-platform/indicators/, see also Table 1). Analysis of the indicator results reveals patterns such as a large increase over time in the extent of higher education research focused on climate change . In terms of public awareness of climate change, the data show much larger shares of the population concerned about the threat of climate change in certain regions (e.g., Latin America) over others.

The current global CCE indicators cover all 196 UNFCCC member states, with many countries having data for all indicators (see Figure 1). This coverage has enabled statistical comparisons among countries both in terms of the indicator data, but also in relation to other country characteristics, such as income per capita, greenhouse gas emissions, or other factors. The patterns which emerge offer insights into potential determinants of country level success in CCE, as well as the types of interventions which may or may not be more effective.

Authors

• Aaron Redman, Arizona State University

• Aaron Benavot, UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Unit

• Kristen Bray Hargis, University of Saskatchewan