Rethinking Climate Change in Education: From Climate Coloniality to Decolonial Educational Ecologies in Comparative and International Education

Abstract

We present methods to examine the relationships between climate change and education while rethinking educational approaches that do not rely on endless economic growth, extraction, and accumulation through dispossession. At this historical moment, which is focused on transitions toward a greener future, it is essential to consider how the roles of those most affected by climate change are often overlooked in narratives about “climate solutions.” The paper highlights what is absent from and erased within the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and prevalent approaches to climate change education. It does so by focusing on a longer historical arc, as well as Black and Indigenous knowledge systems and cosmologies, alongside ongoing and historical injustices. Utilizing the framework of a decolonial educational ecology, we reimagine climate change in education within interconnected global contexts, emphasizing historically marginalized knowledge systems, confronting power imbalances, and creating alternative pathways toward more sustainable, just futures that transcend universal Western epistemic frameworks.