Trends and issues of climate change education in Japan

Abstract

This paper focuses on Climate Change Education for Sustainable Development, a flagship initiative of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. We attempt to identify trends and challenges for climate change education (CCE) programs currently underway in Japan and to provide recommendations for improving such programs by comparing a number of specific programs. With regard to the skills expected to be acquired through CCE programs, the paper relies on the literature review and classification of “key competencies in sustainability” employed by Wiek et al. (Key Competencies in Sustainability: a Reference Framework for Academic Program Development. Springer, 2011). In addition, regarding the content and methods of CCE programs, this paper organizes the connections between issues identified in the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) and key competencies in sustainability, and provides recommendations regarding the framework and educational methods required for capacity development programs based on previous research by two of the authors (Sato and Takahashi, Capacity Development Programme for Climate Change Education (CCE) in the context of ESD, based on the International Discussion on “Key Competencies in Sustainability” and the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report. J Energy Environ Educ 2015). Among the issues revealed by our investigation are the lack of a common definition of CCE or established content or methods for CCE programs in Japan and a weighting of instruction towards knowledge which does not employ methods intended to develop key competencies in sustainability, with general suggestions to improve on current circumstances in Japanese CCE also provided.