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WHAT IS THE ROLE OF EDUCATION IN INFORMING PEOPLE ABOUT THE CLIMATE CRISIS? DOHA KHAN Doha Khan is the co-founder of the South Australian branch of the School Strike 4 Climate movement, and in her final year of high school at Marden Senior College, in Adelaide. She has been involved in organising the Climate Strikes since November 2019 and has helped build and empower an expansive network of student activists. To learn more about School Strike 4 Climate, visit: www.schoolstrike4climate.com
The climate crisis is the greatest threat facing humanity.1 This label is not given lightly: while the climate crisis is sometimes mistaken as just an environmental issue, its far-reaching social, economic, and political impacts highlight that it is anything but. On our current trajectory, we can expect to see between 3 to 5 degrees Celsius of warming above pre-industrial levels within the century.2 The repercussions of this cannot be overstated. Experts predict that the increase in temperature will result in the collapse of ecosystems, the extinction of millions of species, the loss of glaciers, and the submersion of land relied upon by countless communities.3 Estimates suggest that 25 million to 1 billion people could be displaced as environmental migrants by 2050, having to either move within their countries or across borders, as a result of climate impacts.1 The future looks bleak. However, scientists have highlighted that the worst of the climate crisis can still be averted by taking drastic action to cut global carbon dioxide emissions in half by 2030.4 While various commitments 5 have been made by countries to keep the
HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER | VOLUME 29: ISSUE 1 – MARCH 2020
global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, many governments have demonstrated a lack of political will to fulfil their obligations.6 However, as information on the climate crisis and its political context is being promoted and made accessible, millions of people across the world have stepped up to take part in large-scale mobilisations such as the #ClimateStrikes to demand action. These events most recently turned out over 300,000 school children,7 workers and supporters in Australia, and over 4 million people world-wide in September of 2019.8 Inspired by Greta Thunberg,9 School Strike 4 Climate is a student-led movement which exists to pressure world governments to implement policies to stay below 2 degrees Celsius of global warming.10
It confronts authority figures with a question: ‘why should any young person be made to study for a future, when no one is doing enough to save that future?’. The role of education in empowering and enabling students to join the climate movement cannot be overstated.
