The world is facing a climate emergency and a nature crisis. Terrifying media reports based on stark warnings from scientists about the need for action abound, and we are already bearing witness to the extreme weather that they say is set to get worse, with potentially catastrophic consequences.

Some bold targets have been set in response. Scotland has committed itself to becoming a “net zero” society by 2045 - producing less carbon than it takes out of the atmosphere. The sale of new petrol and diesel cars will be banned from 2030, and all new homes in Scotland will have to have renewable or low-carbon heating from 2024. The target for existing homes is that a million be converted from gas or oil heating by the end of the decade.

Underpinning all of these lofty goals has to be education, argues David Reay, professor of carbon management and education at the University of Edinburgh.

He is calling for investment from the Scottish government so that teachers have the time to embed climate change in the school curriculum and pay for the expert support that schools need to get their pupils “match fit for the climate emergency”.

Education is central, explains Reay, because we need the people with the right skills to deliver “the green industrial revolution” - the term coined by prime minister Boris Johnson for the massive change needed. If we get that wrong, the ambitious targets will missed and we will face more dangerous climate change, he says.

How schools can help to halt climate change

Scotland will need people capable of replacing gas boilers with heat pumps, who can manufacture and maintain electric cars and wind turbines. There will also be jobs in tree planting as we try to halt and reverse deforestation, and in peatland restoration.

It used to be that green jobs were for “climate geeks like me”, says Reay, but every job is going to have a green element to it, he argues, because getting to net zero means “every sector will have to have plans and targets in terms of cutting its emissions”.

“So, if you think about a five-year-old today, whatever job they are going to be doing in, say, 20 years’ time, it’s going to be shaped by the climate emergency, by tackling the nature crisis.

“They are going to be in a world where if they just have the education we provide now, there’s a real risk that there will be gaps in terms of their readiness to go into the widening array of careers that are focused on tackling climate change.

“But actually, every career they go into will be shaped by the transition to net zero. Even if they don’t end up in what we would call ‘a green career’, their career will still have to be green, so their education needs to align with that.”

Reay wants to see “climate champions” deployed in schools - like Stem ambassadors - to support teachers.

It is not a specific course that is needed, such as a Higher in climate change, he says, but for climate change to be embedded in the curriculum so that all school leavers understand what climate change is, why it is relevant to them and what opportunities it offers in terms of careers, explains Reay.

Teachers also need resources that are accurate and up to date, and those giving careers guidance need to be alive to all the jobs the climate emergency response is going to create.

“We are in this interesting situation where if you want to get a resource to teach about climate change there are probably a million different things you can find on the internet, so one of the things we need is some kind of quality-assessed resource on climate change for teaching at all the different levels.

“At the moment you could end up with resources that are out of date, that actually don’t represent the evidence and don’t represent the Scottish context.”

Reay is calling on teachers to shout and make noise about the support they require to teach their pupils about climate change and to empower them.

“Teachers need to make their voices heard,” he says. “They are good at that but they need to make their voices heard on this - that they see [teaching about climate change] as something they want to do and they are frustrated because they are unable to do it, so they need help to remove the barriers.”

Reay was speaking to Tes Scotland as Glasgow prepares to host the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference, otherwise known as COP26.

COP26 officially gets underway on Sunday (31 October) and runs until 12 November. It is a critical summit for global climate action and 200 world leaders are expected to attend, including US president Joe Biden, as well as environmental activists such as Sir David Attenborough and Greta Thunberg.

The UK’s overarching aim at COP26 is “to keep 1.5 degrees alive” - that is, to limit global temperature rises to 1.5 degrees in a bid to avoid “the very worst of climate change”, as the COP26 president-designate, Alok Sharma, puts it.

For teachers, COP26 is “a way in” and can be used as a platform to start those conversations in class about climate change, says Reay (see box, above right).

And, of course, many schools have already seized the opportunity that COP26 presents - schools such as Tweedbank Primary in the Borders, which has made climate change a whole-school focus since pupils returned in mid-August.

In P7, teacher Gregor Myles explains, pupils are exploring the topic by using the Keynote presentation app to create website prototypes that will showcase their learning on climate change.

They are explaining what climate change is and what can be done about it, at the same time as learning where to find reliable information and how to organise it, as well as valuable digital skills. One pupil is using motion graphics to depict how the ice caps are melting.

Myles says that he knew the learning was having an impact when - during an entirely separate survey of how they travel to school - one pupil felt compelled to prove their green credentials by explaining that they got a lift in an electric car.

Of course, climate change can also be a frightening topic for many students. Experts writing in the British Medical Journal recently warned that the climate crisis was taking a growing toll on the mental health of children and young people.

They said that, to increase optimism and hope, it was important to give people suffering from eco-anxiety “information on how they could connect more strongly with nature, contribute to greener choices at an individual level and join forces with like-minded communities and groups”.

The key to successfully teaching the topic is empowerment, believes Myles.

“A lot of what we talk about here at Tweedbank is the difference that students can make moving forward - so it’s about looking at what is happening, but also what is being done about it, and how they can make a difference.”

Reay agrees. The focus cannot be on environmental doom - or, as Reay puts it, “‘the future is going to be on fire’ kind of messaging”.

“That doesn’t represent the reality,” says Reay. “We are making progress. We need to make more, but actually over the next few decades we have this massive opportunity to limit climate change, and the children at school today will be the ones who can make huge changes.

“It’s fair enough to be anxious because it’s a big challenge, but what it can’t do is stop there. It needs to be about ‘what do we do about it’, and there are loads of things we can do about it - it needs to be empowering rather than disempowering.”

Emma Seith is a reporter at Tes Scotland. She tweets @Emma_Seith

This article originally appeared in the 29 October 2021 issue