The Non-Profit Organisation That’s Trying to Bridge the gap in Climate Education
Global problems need global solutions, especially when it comes to environmental issues. Each country takes their stance and implements different strategies, making climate change solutions seem more complex and convoluted than they already are. With only a quarter of British adults having heard of this year’s COP26 summit, it’s clear that information is both inaccessible and confusing, but the non-profit organisation ‘Climate Fresk’ are trying to change that.
The Climate Fresk workshop in action. Source: Megan McClellan
The non-profit organisation has been delivering workshops since 2018 in response to the Paris Agreement and is one of several forms of climate education. Climate Fresk is a three-hour workshop dedicated to initiating reasoning, creativity, and discussion about the climate crisis through a series of 42 images that represent the causes and effects of climate change.
Speaking about the importance of this project in terms of global education, UK-based facilitator Sophia Cheng said: “For something so big and so complex, this one-way method of learning is not enough; we need something that taps into a collaborative, shared learning experience that’s interactive.”
Alongside their 42 images, Climate Crisis also use infographics from DrawDown to discuss how the Paris Agreement aims to reduce global temperatures to an average increase of 1.5C compared to pre-industrial levels. In the workshop, it’s discussed that the UK, ranked the 17th country in the production of emissions, has managed to reduce our carbon footprint by reducing industry and production since the 1990s.
While this is good for the UK, it’s not so good for the countries we’re exporting labour to. The United States accounted for 14.8% of the UK’s imported products in 2020, while also being the second-largest producer of emissions. A further6.8% of imported products that are sold in the UK are produced in China, which is the leading producer of CO2 emissions in the world.
It’s not just more complex issues that Climate Fresk are trying to tackle though.
Climate Fresk have multiple activities at their workshops. Source: Megan McClellan
“Awareness in workshop participants is really mixed, and I think what’s surprising is the fundamental understanding that is missing.” added Cheng,
“We ask about explaining the greenhouse effect in a simple way, and I did it at a workshop last week, and the only person that tried got it mixed up with the ozone layer. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it does demonstrate that there isn’t this level of understanding of some of the most basic things.”
Sophia is one of 6,000 Climate Fresk facilitators across the world trying to follow the Paris Agreement’s decision to implement more climate-based education. With YouGov poll results indicating that only 25 per cent of Britons are aware of COP26, compared to 50 per cent of Scots, there is a gap in the market for the educational groups like Climate Fresk.
“So far, the strategy has been reaching those who are willing to spend the three hours, so there’s a little bit of bias in our participants so far. I think the really interesting challenge is when companies and institutions roll it out.” Cheng said when discussing the target audience and uptake of the workshop.
“So, we would like to see it implemented across schools, universities [and] companies.”
While environmental issues are complex, they are important to be able to understand and engage with, and Climate Fresk is a creative solution to solving our climate education crisis.
Climate Fresk has partnered with City of Glasgow College for COP26, and will be running their climate crisis workshop from the 1st-12th of Novemeber.