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National Observer
08-05-2025
- Politics
- National Observer
Trump agenda fuels calls to move annual Climate Week from New York to Montreal
US President Donald Trump's anti-environment and protectionist agenda could chase one of the world's biggest climate events north to Canada. Discussion is growing in global climate circles around moving Climate Week NYC from its historic home in New York City to Montreal, Que., as concerns mount about the chilling effect the US government could have on engagement with international delegates. Catherine McKenna, a former Canadian environment and climate change minister and founder of Climate and Nature Solutions, an advisory consultancy, said that the idea had been sparked by 'climate advocates/experts [who] don't want to go to the US because of border concerns — and general clampdown on discussing climate in the US.' Since Donald Trump — who has called climate change a 'scam' — made his return to the White House, his government has made a singular effort to stymie climate action and clean energy, newly withdrawing the US from the 2015 Paris Agreement, defunding research on global heating, rescinding cornerstone emissions-reduction regulations, and gutting government agencies charged with climate-related missions. The US president's attacks on immigrants and travellers to the country – including several high-profile cases of international visitors being detained by Customs and Border Protection officers despite having relevant visas or passports – have led to a major drop-off in inbound traffic. In Canada, a Leger poll found that a majority of Canadians 'no longer feel welcome and/or safe' travelling to the US. 'I have been meeting with a lot of folks from the private sector around the world who are really engaged in the climate discussion, and two things are clear: one, they are very concerned about climate activists being targeted at the US border, being told to take burner phones, worrying about comments [critical of the US government] they may have made on social media and so on,' McKenna told Canada's National Observer. "There is certainly a level of North American climate diplomacy that could be moved out of the US and Montreal, for many reasons, would be a great idea." Climate Action Network's Caroline Brouillette 'And two, you have the fact that the Trump administration has already rolled back 140 environmental rules and is attacking the charitable status of climate organizations et cetera. The question becomes: can we even discuss climate in a meaningful way [at New York Climate Week]? Can you discuss climate without using the term? McKenna said there was 'a lot of support' for the idea of transplanting Climate Week to Montreal. 'A lot of people have reached out. The reality is it's not going to happen this September' when the event is currently scheduled. 'But in a year's time, it could be very different,' she said. 'Absolutely taking place in New York' Climate Week NYC was first held in 2009 and has grown to be among the most important climate action gatherings globally. It is timed to run alongside the United Nations General Assembly, which also takes place in New York, meaning international heads of state and senior governmental figures can more easily attend. Angela Barranco, executive director in North America for the event's convener, the London, UK-headquartered Climate Group, told Canada's National Observer Climate Week would 'absolutely be taking place in New York City' this autumn, noting that in 2023 over 900 events were included in the program in what was 'a record-breaking year.' She poured cold water on the idea that the event could be transplanted to Montreal. 'Interest in Climate Week NYC has never been higher. The determination and commitment from the business, government, and philanthropic communities to come together in the US on climate change is clear to see,' she said. Climate Week NYC has become an epicentre for international climate action since its launch 15 years ago with government figures including John Podesta, the former US President's senior advisor for international climate policy, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, and Sonia Guajajara, Minister of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, and Jacinda Ardern, the former prime minister of New Zealand, having attended past iterations of the event. Caroline Brouillette, executive director of the Climate Action Network, a climate advocacy group, sees the argument for moving Climate Week to Montreal — not least 'to protect activists from fascist policing tactics such as we are seeing in the US.' But she highlights that the timing of the event alongside the UN could be a show-stopper. 'Having those international decision-makers on climate policy and politics [at Climate Week] is key,' she said, noting it would be 'a challenge' to lose that connection to the UN climate action network. 'But there is certainly a level of North American climate diplomacy that could be moved out of the US and Montreal, for many reasons, would be a great idea,' Brouillette added. Business executives including Apple CEO Tim Cook, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Virgin chief Richard Branson have also been among the high-profile speakers to take part in past years. Google, McKinsey Sustainability, and the Youth Climate Justice Fund are all past event sponsors. Last year saw more than 100,000 attendees from over 100 countries gather in New York to participate in some of the more than 600 climate action events platformed by Climate Week. 'Millions of others' were reached through 'partnerships with museums, schools, public art exhibitions and other activations,' a Climate Group spokesperson said.
Miami Herald
22-04-2025
- Science
- Miami Herald
COLUMN: Teachers, states stepping up to keep climate change education alive as federal government defunds it
This past fall, at an event in New York City's National Museum of the American Indian, a packed room of educators and federal employees applauded the release of a document titled "Climate Literacy: Essential Principles for Understanding and Addressing Climate Change." The 52-page document, released at Climate Week NYC, laid out principles for improving young people's understanding of the science, skills and aptitudes required to address this fast-moving global challenge - including "hope" and "urgency." Frank Niepold of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) told The Hechinger Report at the time that he hoped it would be widely adopted by states and even internationally. "We're not just talking to classroom teachers," he said. "This is for every kind of educator, every kind of communicator and all the decision makers." In April, the Trump administration defunded the lead federal program that put out the guide, the U.S. Global Change Research Program. Many of the other agencies that worked on it, including NOAA, have also been decimated by staffing cuts. And the guide itself has been taken down from its government URL, leaving nothing but an error message. That same week, on April 8, the Department of Commerce argued in a press release announcing further cuts that federally funded climate research has promoted "exaggerated and implausible climate threats, contributing to a phenomenon known as 'climate anxiety,' which has increased significantly among America's youth." The agency, which houses NOAA, said it would no longer fund educational initiatives for K-12 students. Related: Want to read more about how climate change is shaping education? Subscribe to our free newsletter. Youth climate anxiety is real. But it's likely not coming from knowing too much. In fact, climate anxiety coexists with widespread climate ignorance among America's students. That's according to a new national survey of teenagers released in April by EdWeek and the Aspen Institute's This Is Planet Ed (where, disclosure, I'm an adviser): Just 12 percent of teens feel they know "a lot" about the causes of climate change. Only 54 percent of teens correctly identified greenhouse gas emissions from human activity as the biggest contributor to climate change. Only 42 percent of teens recognize that there is an overwhelming scientific consensus on human-caused climate change. Meanwhile, just over half, a majority, wrongly believe that scientists are divided 50-50 on the human role in climate change. This suggests a worryingly high level of exposure to climate denial and disinformation. 51 percent wrongly thought climate change was directly damaging the ozone layer. 57 percent of teens thought recycling would have a "large impact" on climate change, making it the most popular option. (In reality, according to the organization Drawdown, recycling is in the middle of the pack as far as climate solutions go, far behind ideas like reducing food waste or increasing solar power generation). Related: Education that convinces kids the world isn't doomed As the U.S. government steps back, and American teens struggle to master the basics, other countries are forging ahead. The PISA (Program for International Student Assessment), the prestigious international "report card" program, announced last fall that it will develop a new measure of climate literacy, to be administered as part of the 2029 test. Andreas Schleicher, who oversees PISA at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, told me that the test is designed to promote students' sense of agency. He says it will be based in part on material that has long been covered in schools in countries including Japan and Canada. Meanwhile, back home in the U.S., science educators are circulating the climate literacy guide as "samizdat" - the term for self-publication of banned books in the former Soviet Union. Colorado cites the guide in updated state science standards, currently under review. And the University of Washington added a new page featuring a copy of the guide to an existing online open educational resource called STEM Teaching Tools, which gets about 10,000 to 15,000 visitors a month. Education consultant Deb Morrison, who worked on the STEM Teaching Tools resource, says they rushed to release it in time for the National Conference on Science Education in Philadelphia in March, where they held over a dozen sessions on the topic for science teachers from around the country. Related: Want teachers to teach climate change? You've got to train them " I would say that educators in every state are teaching climate," she said. "It may be framed to manage the sort of tensions that exist in different places, to be able to meet people where they're at, but they're still teaching climate in Florida, in Maine, in Mississippi, in Oregon, in Alabama." That said, Morrison said the removal of the guide from its domain, not to mention the cancellation of basic government data collection on climate, poses a challenge not just to scientific knowledge, but to equity, justice and democracy. "Now we're voting based on opinion or pseudo-expertise in different spaces, and nobody's actually learning and using evidence." For Schleicher, too, advancing climate literacy through PISA is a key part of a broader project to promote scientific knowledge as a bedrock of international cooperation. In a world where you can find entire YouTube channels dedicated to the proposition that the earth is flat, he said, "Science actually builds consensus among people on an evidence-based objective reality." Without that, it's hard to imagine a peaceful or prosperous future for anyone. A note: This is my final climate and education column for The Hechinger Report with the support of This Is Planet Ed at the Aspen Institute. I've been contributing to this series since 2022 and have covered early education through workforce development, traditional and Indigenous knowledge, climate storytelling in children's media and more. It's been an honor and you can find my continued freelance coverage of these topics here at Hechinger, at Grist and at my weekly newsletter. You can also sign up for Hechinger's climate change and education newsletter here. Contact editor Caroline Preston at preston@ on Signal at CarolineP.83 or 212-870-8965. This story about climate anxiety was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter. 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