Dismantling climate coloniality and working towards climate justice: Three considerations for climate change education

Read the full post on the Global CCE Blog.

Leading political geographer Farhana Sultana coined the term ‘climate coloniality’ to refer to the enduring legacies of colonialism and imperialism on vulnerable communities around the world. These legacies govern the ability of vulnerable communities to mitigate and adapt to climate change in the past, present, and future.

These communities – which include island nations, coastal communities, and Indigenous communities, to name a few – are more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and yet, are often among the most underrepresented groups in climate policy decisions and strategic planning. This colonial system of climate governance structurally renders some lives and ecosystems more disposable over others (Sultana, 2022).

Western education systems are complicit in perpetuating climate coloniality because they privilege Eurocentric ways of knowing in virtually all levels of climate education planning. In addition, rarely do learners receive opportunities to engage with what climate injustice looks like, locally or globally, and especially in various locations across the Global South. Thus, part of dismantling climate coloniality in education must involve two major commitments: 1) a commitment to epistemic justice – that is, listening to and taking seriously Indigenous knowledges and other non-Western epistemologies in our understanding and teaching of climate change and 2) a commitment to supporting efforts to realize material justice (such as promoting land defense or equitable climate financing) for communities who stand to be the most affected by climate change (Sultana, 2022).

Below, I pose three questions that may help practitioners, curriculum developers, and policymakers consider how these two commitments to dismantling climate coloniality can be considered in various educational contexts.