Climate Emergency and the Call for Disruptive Educational Approaches

This introductory chapter lays out a foundation for rethinking climate change education within the context of climate emergency. Framing climate change as an emergency is not merely semantic but underscores its systemic roots in fossil-fuel dependency, growth-oriented economies and structural inequalities. The chapter critiques dominant deficit-based educational models, particularly education for sustainable development, for depoliticizing the crisis and diluting the transformative potential of educational initiatives. In contrast, it advocates for an education for climate emergency as an urgent expression of critical environmental education, one that positions learners as active agents capable of questioning hegemonic paradigms and envisioning alternative futures.