Fifty years ago, the first Earth Day started an environmental revolution. Now, we are igniting an education revolution to save the planet.
RE Royalties’ is pleased to join this campaign for Earth Day 2021, combining grassroots support and on the ground efforts by students, educators, and non-profits with national level commitments from Ministries of Education and Environment.
Through the Climate and Environmental Literacy Campaign, we are helping students across the world benefit from high-quality education to develop into informed and engaged environmental stewards.
The campaign encourages governments attending the crucial United Nations climate summit in 2021 to make climate change and climate literacy a core feature of school curriculum across the globe.
In addition to EarthDay.org, campaign backers, including RE Royalties, range from trade unions and teachers’ unions to environmental organizations, NGOs, and Mayors from around the globe such as the International Trades Union Confederation, National Wildlife Federation, and the Labor Network for Sustainability.
Climate education can also help foster a new generation of citizens with the interest and the skills needed for jobs in a growing green economy, to make better, sustainable consumer choices and to hold governments — both national and local — accountable for their decisions.
Kathleen Rogers, President of EarthDay.org, which is one of the key organizations behind the campaign, said, “An educated and civically active citizenry is the best bet the world has for overcoming the climate and environmental emergency.
It is the key to building strong communities, an engaged workforce, and the sustainable economies needed for the 21st Century. It has to start in schools, and it has to start now. Together, we can change this.”
“The goal for all governments at COP26 in the UK next year is clear. Compulsory and assessed climate education is required linked with real-life civic engagement — so what is taught in the classroom is reinforced by real world experience whether it be learning how to install solar panels on a school roof or restoring a degraded forest and will flow out into our companies and higher education institutions.”
"Introducing civics and climate literacy tools in the classroom can help those most affected by climate change, the vulnerable and marginalized communities, by building knowledge and skills for the growing green economy,” said Kathleen Rogers.
Increased Climate Education Backed by Scientists
In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences earlier in 2020, researchers argue that education is one of the key social tipping points to realize the aim of stabilizing the Earth’s climate by 2050.
The researchers, drawn from centers in Africa, Europe and the United States, state, “These social tipping interventions comprise removing fossil-fuel subsidies and incentivizing decentralized energy generation, building carbon-neutral cities, divesting from assets linked to fossil fuels, revealing the moral implications of fossil fuels, strengthening climate education and engagement, and disclosing greenhouse gas emissions information.”
Wide-Spread Public Support
There are strong indications of wide-spread public support for a dramatic step up in climate education and literacy, including in schools, worldwide.
A survey by World Wide Views, conducted in close to 80 countries before the 2015 Summit that adopted the landmark Paris Climate Change Agreement, found that close to 80 percent of those questioned thought climate education was the strongest policy for reducing emissions followed by action to protect tropical forests.
Earlier this month the views of the UK citizens climate assembly, with people drawn from all walks of life, were announced on how they thought the country could achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
The citizens proposed many direct measures such as taxing frequent flyers and reducing red meat consumption, but the overarching recommendation was information and education.
Nations meet in the Scottish city of Glasgow in November 2021 to raise ambition across the areas of the Paris Climate Change Agreement. Climate education falls under Article 12 of the Agreement known as Action for Climate Empowerment.
At RE Royalties, we support Earth Day’s campaign and believe that every school in the world must have compulsory, assessed climate and environmental education with a strong civic engagement component.
Combined with civic education, climate and environmental literacy will create jobs, build a green consumer market, and allow citizens to engage with their governments in a meaningful way to solve climate change.
Typically, Earth Day is assigned a different theme or area of focus each year; this year’s theme is Restore Our Earth.
Parallel to the Biden Administration’s global climate summit, EarthDay.org will produce its second Earth Day Live digital event on April 22. Workshops, panel discussions, and special performances will focus on Earth Day’s 2021 theme, Restore Our Earth, which examines natural processes, emerging green technologies, and innovative thinking that can restore the world’s ecosystems.
At RE Royalties, Earth Day serves as an important reminder to bring our sustainable business goals into focus internally and externally. We will continue to work with our clients to lighten our environmental footprint globally.
Even as you stay home and maintain social distancing, you can still exercise your responsibility to act for the environment. No matter where you are, you can make a difference!
At RE Royalties, we want to highlight why Earth Day is important, although our commitment to sustainability is not limited to just this one day – it’s part of our business DNA.
We believe we can create a cleaner future faster through innovative finance; this means transforming the way projects get financed and being flexible and creative in how we help solve our clients’ problems.
While much work remains to be done, RE Royalties is making progress in responding to key environmental challenges. That’s a result of the sustainability journey we embarked on when the company was founded, which commits us to continually improve our environmental, social and economic performance.
At RE Royalties, we are committed to delivering key sustainability initiatives that are at the heart of our business. We take every Earth Day as an opportunity to bring together our staff, Board of Directors, clients and shareholders to deliver projects that foster environmental leadership.
Earth Day is an opportunity to re-commit to our business efforts and remind ourselves why we started RE Royalties in the first place.
Learn more about the climate and environment literacy campaign here: https://www.earthday.org/campaign/climate-environmental-literacy/
The sign-up letter that will be presented to Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC and the more than 190 governments or ‘Parties’ attending COP26, can be signed here: https://action.earthday.org/cop26_literacy_letter_orgs