1.1 A broader focus

A scoping review of the skills UK graduates need to address the climate emergency found that while technical skills are needed for some specific roles, other skills, such as communication, presentation, influencing, analysis, critical thinking, and team working are essential and should be included in every degree programme (Cook, 2020). Similarly, Kwauk and Casey (2022) argue that climate change is not only a technical challenge but a sociological one, because it requires humans to find ways of adapting to live in a changing world. They propose an expanded green skills framework that encapsulates three overlapping types of skills:

• skills needed for green jobs that support transition to a low-carbon economy
• skills for a green transformation that help societies to adapt and transform social and economic injustice
• green life skills that crosscut both of the above.

There are advantages to this wider view of green skills. It moves thinking away from a focus on economic growth and capitalism and acknowledges the contribution those involved in care work and education can bring to addressing the climate emergency. Even experiencing formal education at all can contribute to the global climate effort, with a move to educating all girls globally potentially reducing CO₂ emissions by more than 50 gigatons by 2050 (Rapid Transition Alliance, 2020). This is because educated women tend to have fewer and healthier children as well as living longer with less likelihood of poverty. The Rapid Transition Alliance (2020) suggest women in Mali who have experienced at least secondary education have three children on average, compared with seven otherwise, and that globally educating all girls would mean a global population of 2 billion fewer than otherwise predicted by 2045.

Figure 2 In Tinginaput, India, Bundei Hidreka shares her engineering skills with Rohim Miniaka, teaching him how to make a solar lamp

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This is a photograph of a man and a woman standing together. The woman is smiling and holding a lamp. The man is holding a solar panel

Figure 2 In Tinginaput, India, Bundei Hidreka shares her engineering skills with Rohim Miniaka, teaching him how to make a solar lamp

All too often, climate education policies lack a focus on skills. Instead, sustainability and climate education are often taught in a fragmented way across the curriculum. There is a focus on learning about the environment as knowledge to be tested, rather than addressing the climate emergency as the most pressing issue facing humanity. Dunlop and Rushton (2022) describe how such policies can be ‘placebo’ policies, deflecting attention and leaving educators and learners poorly equipped to address the climate emergency. Teachers, teacher educators and young people would like to see a curriculum where there’s space to learn for the environment, and provide people with skills so they can act for the environment (Dunlop and Rushton, 2022).

Having the relevant skills and knowledge does not mean that a learner will always act. Being able to act depends on:

• personal factors, such as values, motivation and confidence
• material factors, such as technologies or environment
• social factors, such as cultural norms and expectations.

This means that it can also be helpful for educators to think in terms of capabilities (Nussey et al., 2022; Owens et al., 2023) or in other words, whether people have the capability to achieve the lives or outcomes they value, not just the right to do so.

Activity 1 What skills do learners need?

Timing: Allow about 20 minutes

Watch the video below in which Sally Hayns, Chief Executive Officer of the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management (CIEEM), Leigh-Anne Perryman, Senior Lecturer at the Open University and Simon Behrman, Associate Professor at Warwick University share their thoughts about the skills learners need. As you watch the video, make notes on the following questions.

• What skills do learners need to address the climate emergency?
• What are CIEEM doing to encourage learners to develop the relevant skills?
• Thinking about the learners in your own context, what personal, material and social factors might be enablers or barriers in relation to taking action for the climate?

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Transcript: Video 1 What skills do learners need?

SALLY HAYNS

Our climate is changing, and having people with the right skills to manage our adaptation to climate change is going to be crucial to society’s future. So, we’re going to need to give people the right skills to deliver a sustainable economy and a sustainable society going forwards. That’s going to require investment in areas of skill development that will embrace new technologies and new ways of working. People are going to need to understand the environmental impact of the current ways in which we do things, and how we then need to address them. So, understanding the science and technology between the way in which our economy works and the finance that fuels our economy is going to be essential so that we can make the right decisions going forwards. People are going to need skills in critical thinking, analysis and interpretation of data, ways of using new technologies, understanding how we decarbonise our manufacturing and our technology and how they can be part of that.

LEIGH-ANNE PERRYMAN

The skills that people need are related to both adaptation to the effects of climate change and the climate crisis, but also skills in relation to mitigation against it.

SIMON BEHRMAN

I think the most important skill that is needed for addressing the climate emergency is the ability to think laterally, to think and to explore the question on multiple levels. Very often we talk about climate change as being a super wicked problem, and what that means is that the impacts of climate change have a multiplicity of impacts in terms of migration, in terms of living standards, in terms of work, in terms of food supply, I could go on and on and on. And therefore, to try and better understand the impacts of the climate emergency it’s important that we’re able to think about how all these things are linked together.

SALLY HAYNS

One of the areas of developing green jobs that’s going to be really important in the future, are green jobs for nature. We can mitigate against climate change by using what’s known as nature-based solutions, nature’s answer to reducing the release of carbon, and reducing the impact of climate change. So for example, creating more meandering rivers and floodplains rather than hard-engineered solutions.

But that’s going to need more people coming into our profession and our industry to deliver green jobs for nature, whether that be directly as ecologists or as conservation workers or in supporting roles like HR, finance, administration. This is a growing area of skills need. We’ve recently launched a website, a new website, called www.greenjobsfornature.org, which tells you all about the roles available delivering green jobs for nature, who the employers are and how to get those jobs, the career entry paths, as well as a bit of a reality check.

End transcript: Video 1 What skills do learners need?

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Video 1 What skills do learners need?

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If you’re interested to find out more about CIEEM’s work in this area, have a look at the Green Jobs for Nature [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] website, which explains what a green job for nature is and how to get one.