Draft:Office for Climate Education

The Office for Climate Education (OCE) is a non-profit foundation that aims to promote and implement climate change education in primary and secondary schools globally. Its actions are aligned with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Program 2030, and especially SDGs 4 and 13.

HISTORY

Creation

Following the COP21, the Paris Agreement came into effect on November 4th, 2016, and highlighted the importance of education, training, and public awareness (Article 12.) in addressing climate change. Given the need to equip younger generations with the necessary tools for understanding and analysis in a rapidly changing world, significant efforts are required. In response to this challenge, various scientific and educational institutions convened in September 2017 and established the Office for Climate Education (OCE), which was officially launched on March 16th, 2018, in Paris, as a foundation  sheltered by the La Main à la Pâte Foundation. The OCE aims to facilitate scientific, educational, and operational collaboration on an international level for climate change education.

Founding members of OCE

Its founding members are Météo-France, the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), Sorbonne University and the association Météo et Climat. Eric Guilyardi is the President of the OCE, he is a climate scientist and lead author of the 5th IPCC report.

A UNESCO Category 2 Centre

The OCE's expertise in climate change education, as well as its alignment with UNESCO's mandate to promote quality education, including sustainable development education, has led to its recognition as a UNESCO Category 2 Centre in 2020. This designation has made the OCE a member of an international network of esteemed centers of excellence committed to advancing UNESCO's mandate and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As a center under UNESCO's auspices, the OCE contributes to the implementation of UNESCO's Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) strategy and collaborates with governments to support the development of public policies related to climate change education.

Observer Organization to the IPCC

The French Ministry of Ecological Transition formally invited the OCE to contribute to the governmental review of IPCC draft reports on educational matters, leading to the OCE becoming an observer organization of the IPCC in 2021. Since its creation, the OCE has collaborated closely with various IPCC technical support teams to produce and validate teaching resources based on IPCC reports. As an Observer Organization, the OCE is now able to attend IPCC and working group meetings, suggest experts for project examination and evaluation, and participate in working groups at the request of the IPCC Secretariat. Furthermore, in 2022, the OCE and IPCC signed a memorandum of understanding to explore further synergies between their work.

Mission

The OCE aims to support its vision by empowering primary and secondary school teachers to integrate climate change concepts and issues into their classrooms, as well as providing policy support to national education systems worldwide.

The OCE strives to become a worldwide reference in climate change education, drawing on collaborations with institutional actors such as UNESCO, the IPCC, ministries of education and the environment, scientific organizations and academies, NGOs, and schools from around the world.

Areas of work

OCE and its partners have a mission to promote climate change education worldwide through:

• free, multilingual and royalty-free educational resources, based on the IPCC reports, which emphasize interdisciplinarity and active pedagogy;

• a professional development program to familiarize teachers with climate science, active pedagogy and project design;

• design and implementation of national, regional and international operational projects;

• support to institutions in charge of designing and defining public policies for climate change education.

Publications

The OCE has released two volumes of the Climate in Our Hands series, titled "Ocean and Cryosphere" and "Climate Change and Land," which provide pedagogical guidance to primary and secondary school teachers. These guides offer turnkey sessions based on an investigative approach, including experiments and document analysis, to help students understand climate change. Since its establishment in 2018, the OCE has produced over 71 pedagogical resources, all freely available in French, Spanish, and English.

OCE’S PROJECTS

ALEC

ALEC (América Latina para la Educación Climática) is a project coordinated by the OCE that aims to promote and implement climate change education in Latin America. In order to achieve this goal, the OCE collaborates closely with local partners with the aim of adapting its educational resources to local contexts, providing professional development workshops to teachers and trainers and creating communities of practice. This project, with a budget of 4 million euros, is coordinated by OCE in collaboration with local actors in Mexico, Colombia and Chile. It aims to train at least 7,000 teachers in the region, enabling more than 500,000 students in the region to be knowledgeable about climate change

ESM2025

ESM2025 is a European research project developing the next generation of earth system models. It includes an educational component supported by the OCE which will develop targeted educational material, and training workshops specifically designed for teachers and teacher trainers, such as the Climate Education Summer Universities and the school-scale climate action project, Climathon.

XAIDA

XAIDA is a new EU-funded 4-year project led by sixteen European research institutes to better assess and predict the influence of climate change on extreme weather using novel artificial intelligence methods. The OCE, along with other European educational organizations, is working within the project on producing pedagogical resources and teacher training modules on extreme meteorological events

TeachersCOP

In 2021 the first TeachersCOP was launched with the aim of bringing the voice of teachers to the COP. The TeachersCOP is an international event created by the Office for Climate Education, to highlight to global politicians and decision-makers the work of teachers, the challenges they face and the key role they play in the global climate response. During the TeachersCOP hundreds of teachers from around the world connect simultaneously to discover and exchange best practices on climate change education through simultaneous translation in French, English, Spanish and Arabic. The first edition took place during the COP26 held in Glasgow in Scotland and counted with the participation of more than 500 teachers from more than 35 different countries. Following this success, the OCE renewed the experience and once again broughtthe voice and the great work of teachers to COP27, held in Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt.Due to it’s popularity among teachers, the TeachersCOP aims now to be recurrent event at every COP, with the next COP28 taking place in UAE.

MEMBERS

Ex-officio members

• Luc Abbadie, Director of the Institute for Environmental Transition of Sorbonne University;
• Jean Jouzel, President of the association Météo et Climat;
• Jun Morohashi, Head of the "Education for Sustainable Development" section of UNESCO;
• Hervé Roquet, Deputy Director of Research, Météo-France;
• Daniel Rouan, President of the Foundation La main à la pâte;
• Marie-Lise Sabrié, Director of the Scientific and Technological Culture mission of the IRD.

Qualified members

• Eric Brun, IPCC Focal Point for the French Government, Director of ONERC, France;
• Barbara Filtzinger, Head of the Education Working Area at Siemens Stiftung, Germany;
• Eric Guilyardi, Oceanographer and Climate Scientist, Institut Pierre Simon Laplace (IPSL);
• Coralie Noël, Senior official for sustainable development, Ministry of Education, France
• Anna Pirani, Head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group 1 Technical Support Unit;
• Jean-Loup Puget, Académie des sciences;

Permanent guests

• Hélène Combel, Inspector, French Ministry of Education, acting as Government Commissioner;
• Pierre Léna, Académie des sciences, Honorary President of the OCE and La main à la pâte;
• Yves Saint-Geours, President of the Commission nationale française pour l'UNESCO;
• David Wilgenbus, Executive Director of the OCE.

Éric Guilyardi is the Chair of the Strategic Board of the OCE.

External links

• Office for Climate Education, learning today for a better tomorrow(Official website of the European Union)
• Supporting Climate Change Education (Sorbonne University)
• Educating young people about climate change : a priority (Fondation La main à la pâte)