Gesturing Not Acting: Searching for Policy Guidance for Australian Climate Educators

Australia has no national approach to climate change education, neither for primary, secondary, or tertiary education nor for the informal and community adult education sectors. Inaction has its roots in Australian politics reluctant to engage with scientific evidence or community experience of extreme weather events and hamstrung by the political interference of carbon dealing mega-corporations cashing in on a profit-making bonanza. Adult educators have a substantial role to play in addressing the climate crisis and there is value in considering the international sphere for policy guidance. We conducted a descriptive, desktop content analysis of documents produced under the auspices of the United Nations from 2010 to 2022 searching for future-focussed statements on climate justice education policy. International frameworks and conventions hold concrete possibilities for imaging transformative practices. There are increasing levels of detail in frameworks supportive of climate change education internationally, and Australia is a signatory. Our work contributes towards the argument that Australia needs to develop national and state policy settings for climate justice education in line with United Nations settings.