How do governments support communicating, teaching and learning about climate change?

The Convention emphasizes the need to educate people about climate change. Improving awareness and understanding of climate change, and creating solutions to facilitate access to information on a changing climate are key to winning public support for climate-related policies.

The Convention, through its Article 6, calls on governments to educate, empower and engage all stakeholders and major groups on policies relating to climate change – a call that is echoed by the Kyoto Protocol (Art. 10(e)) as well as by the Paris Agreement (through its Article 12). The UN climate regime fosters action to develop and implement educational and training programmes on climate change. Many governments and IGOs are already working in partnership with civil society to fulfil the above commitments. However, the scale of challenges posed by climate change requires an engagement on outreach activities of a greater magnitude.

Doha work programme and the Dialogue on Article 6 of the Convention

In 2013, the COP adopted the Doha work programme on Article 6 of the Convention and requested the SBI to organize an annual in-session Dialogue on Article 6 of the Convention to enhance work in this area. The objective of the dialogue is to provide a regular forum to Parties and other stakeholders to share their experiences and exchange ideas, good practices and lessons learned regarding the implementation of Article 6 of the Convention.

In 2016, Parties decided to further improve the effectiveness of the Doha work programme and to popularly refer activities under Article 6 as ‘Action for climate empowerment’.

Paris Agreement Article 12

The Paris Agreement recognizes the importance of climate change education, training, public awareness, public participation and public access to information, and asks Parties to cooperate in taking appropriate measures. CMA 1 will explore ways of enhancing implementation in this regard.