Is climate literacy an effective proxy for climate change education? Evidence from young people’s conceptualisations of climate change in England

Education, including school education, is integral to just responses to global climate change and sustainability crises. Increasingly, national and international surveys seek to assess the ‘climate literacy' of young people, including as a mechanism to measure the effectiveness of national education systems for preparing young people. However, these surveys generally ask young people to identify accurate knowledge from a series of definitions, rather than exploring their understanding through open questions. This research analyses 2051 survey responses from students aged 11-14 years in England to the question ‘What is climate change? Climate change is …’. Just over half (52.5%) provided responses which broadly included ideas of change or harm to the environment and/or Earth systems, all with reference to temperature. We argue that for young people to develop a lasting and multi-dimensional understanding of climate change, climate change education must extend beyond a narrow focus on geography and science to include a greater range of disciplinary perspectives. Further, we consider whether the global movement towards the measurement of climate literacy through surveys risks underscoring a narrow, predominantly science-based understanding of climate literacy, and away from holistic conceptualisations which attend to affective dimensions, and ideas of justice and equity.