Students educating students about climate change

National Observer

12-05-2025

These in-their-own-words pieces are told to Patricia Lane and co-edited with input from the interviewee for the purpose of brevity.
Juliana Janot wants all post-secondary students to understand climate change. This 20-year-old University of British Columbia student co-founded Climate Education for All (CEFA) (@climateeducation4all on Instagram) to make sure every student is educated about the causes and impacts of the climate crisis and its solutions.
Tell us about your project.
A friend, who is an engineering student, recently asked me if climate change was real! He never had a class of any kind on it and really did not know. But he wants to. So, I launched the Climate Education for All (CEFA) campaign at UBC, with co-organizers Taylor Nitzsche and Professor Fernanda Tomaselli. The 2,000 UBC undergraduates we surveyed overwhelmingly support including climate education in their programs. CEFA has already secured this commitment from the deans of the UBC faculties of Forestry, Land and Food Systems, and the School of Nursing. These will serve as models and inspiration for the remainder of UBC.
I attended Starfish Canada's Youth Environmental Changemakers Summit and recruited students from across Canada to launch campaigns at their own schools. The CEFA network will ask post-secondary institutions everywhere to educate and empower a generation of climate-conscious professionals to make actionable change. We are currently active at the University of Toronto, Simon Fraser University, University of Guelph, University of Calgary, Okanagan College, Mount Allison University, Acadia University and University of British Columbia. We have international interest too, and CEFA now includes Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and most recently, IPB University Indonesia. We are just getting started.
CEFA will host strategy discussions, provide materials and campaign training and mentoring for students running their campaigns. Where it is already happening, we daylight the approach and hope to facilitate interaction and learning. Where change is needed, the approach is different for each campus. For example, at UBC, faculties have autonomy, so we took that into account. At other schools, sometimes a policy change can happen university-wide.
How did you get into this work?
Juliana Janot is a 20-year-old University of British Columbia student who co-founded Climate Education for All (CEFA) (@climateeducation4all on Instagram) to make sure every student is educated about climate change.
I attended a conference for climate leaders at the University of California and learned that students and faculty from the San Diego campus successfully campaigned to persuade their school to require climate education as a graduation prerequisite, so they are prepared for the future they will actually live. I was inspired to bring the effort back to UBC.
What makes it hard?
Universities are complex institutions. We are eager but thinking through a plan and developing strong relationships to carry it out are essential. I am excited to begin a directed studies research project next term, learning different approaches taken at universities and colleges that have already implemented a climate literacy graduation requirement. I hope my findings will make it easier for others.
What gives you hope?
The current lack of knowledge about global heating among government and business decision-makers is dangerous. I believe we will succeed. Sometimes we face inertia but no one disagrees with the basic concept. We are helping to make a safer world.
What keeps you awake at night?
Excitement! Students have so much anxiety and sadness. We are developing a pathway to transform those emotions into building a better world.
The politicians and CEOs leading the world's largest polluting nations and corporations are highly educated. One has to ask: Are universities creating change-makers or just followers who comply with and reproduce existing systems of inequity and climate destruction? I see us sparking a student-led global movement that educates and empowers us to be much more effective leaders than those currently in charge.
How did your childhood affect your work?
When I was a small child in Brazil, I was aware there were many other children who did not have enough to eat. I was highly empathic and wanted to help. In middle school, we explored topics like human rights and, once I learned about the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, I could see adults around the world were working on solutions. I thought I could, too. My passion for climate action began when I understood that continuing to burn fossil fuels carries threats to human dignity, disproportionately affecting those most vulnerable. I dream that no child's future is threatened by climate disasters and no human's health is endangered by pollution.
What would you like to say to other young people?
We are often asked, 'What would you like to do when you grow up?' But later is too late! I started wanting to help when I was 11 but most NGOs only allowed volunteers if you were 16. But I knew kids could make a difference and co-founded a non-profit organization called Construindo o Futuro (CF). It has empowered more than 400 teenagers to realize their change-making potential. We have helped more than 7,000 people across Brazil and beyond through youth-led socio-environmental community projects.