Educating Students for Climate Action: Distraction or Higher-Education Capital?

Abstract

Abstract This essay examines how universities are responding to demands to educate students for climate action. I argue for a whole-of-university approach, in which sustainability becomes part of the mission of the university, and translates into reimagined forms of education, research, outreach, and management of the university operations. This approach runs counter to the most common response of universities, incremental to new demands, and is likely to take place only in institutions with greater capacity for innovation. Strategy and knowledge are key resources to support such innovation, drawing on the comparative analysis of the global experience of higher education, as there are already high rates of institutional innovation globally in educating for climate action.