Abstract:

In September 2019, the UN Secretary-General called on all sectors of society to mobilize for a Decade of Action. The Decade of Action calls for accelerating sustainable solutions to all the world’s biggest challenges by 2030. At the heart of Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development are 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). SDGs aim to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure peace and prosperity for all by 2030. The SDG 13 “Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts” has the target 13.3 “Improve education, awareness-raising and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning”. Nowadays, many universities are engaged in achieving SDGs. It is crucial that climate change is included as part of universities’ teaching, and also the development of SDG 13 awareness activities for students. The objective of this study is to demonstrate the activity performed as part of a course in Meteorology that intends to increase students' awareness of the climate change problem. This action took place with students of the Bachelor’s Degree in Environmental Sciences at the Universitat Politècnica de València (Spain). The prepared activity was entitled: Students committed to climate change. Its learning outcomes were to describe what happens to the temperature and CO₂ concerning climate change; explain how global warming is dominated by past and future CO₂ emissions; argue the importance of acting against global warming and cutting greenhouse gas emissions; and to enlighten students about the impact that our daily habits have on the environment. Performing this activity consisted in finding out about SDG 13 and the European CO2MVS initiative to accurately measure the amount of anthropogenic CO₂ emissions, and completing a questionnaire. The results obtained from the questionnaire show that 84% of university students are aware that climate change is happening now and it is caused mainly by human activities. Many students agreed with the following affirmations: a university must have a climate change policy (96%); a university must contribute in its operation to achieve the adaptation strategies to climate change set by the government (92%); a university must educate its students about the causes (100%) and impacts (100%) of climate change; a university should encourage its students to seek solutions to climate change problems (100%). A high percentage of the students (80%) confirmed that they adopt the necessary initiatives to reduce CO₂ as much as possible in their everyday lives. Twenty-four percent of them stated that they could not explain to other students the origin of CO₂ in the atmosphere, and 36% of the students did not have enough arguments to explain why adopting a wide range of technological measures and behavioral changes could limit the rise in the global average temperature to 2°C above pre-industrial levels. Finally, the students answered various open questions about how to reduce atmospheric CO₂ levels, individual actions to reduce the carbon footprint, social problems that climate change entails, and how citizens can be made aware of the importance of reducing CO₂. These results show the need to improve climate change knowledge in education.

Keywords:

SDG, SDG 13, climate change, climate change education, education for sustainability, Higher Education, University.