ESD for Tomorrow: Bridging Gaps in Sustainability Learning

P2: Justice Analysis
In the context of the contemporary environmental crisis, the role of education cannot be ignored. However, Stein et al. (2023) pointed out that the current Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) framework is fundamentally dependent on the modern colonial and capitalist system, so that it cannot achieve true sustainability. Therefore, the key issue is not how to adjust ESD to support the existing environmental agenda, but to think about how to help people prepare to face the modern lifestyle based on racial, colonial and ecological violence through decolonial education. Based on the perspective of decolonial justice in education, we can have a deeper understanding of the impact of climate coloniality on the global South and marginalized groups, thereby revealing the deep limitations of ESD.
Sultana (2022) proposed that the climate crisis is not just a natural phenomenon, it is essentially a product of colonialism, capitalism and the global governance system. She pointed out that climate coloniality refers to the fact that the global South bears a greater price in dealing with the climate crisis caused by resource plunder and carbon emissions led by Western countries, and behind this is the continuation of historical colonial exploitation (Sultana, 2022). In the framework of ESD, knowledge production mainly relies on Western academic and technical perspectives, ignoring the local knowledge and life experience of the global South and indigenous groups. This problem reflects the epistemic coloniality criticized by Sultana (2020). In global environmental governance, Western developed countries have accumulated a lot of resources through industrialization, but have turned a blind eye to the ecological burden of the global South. This historical climate debt has made the global South more vulnerable to climate disasters and lacks the resources to recover. ESD has inadvertently continued this inequality, marginalizing the unique ecological wisdom and risk resistance methods of the global South.
Going further, Stein et al. (2023) question whether the existing ESD can really motivate people to meet climate challenges within the framework of moral responsibility and true fairness. They pointed out that the core of the current ESD still revolves around the reconciliation of economic growth and environmental protection, which is nothing more than an effort to green the existing growth model, that is, everything remains the same, but greener. This model strengthens the colonial modernity of growth as the core rather than fundamentally reflecting on the relationship between human society and nature. Decolonial justice should guide education away from the modern colonial mindset, so as to cultivate citizens who can truly assume global climate responsibility, rather than just learners who pursue technical emission reduction goals.
To achieve decolonial justice in ESD, it is necessary to go beyond the traditional technical and economic framework and incorporate the life experience and local knowledge of the global South into the education system. This is not only a knowledge shift, but also an ethical call - requiring us to rethink the ultimate purpose of education. In this regard, decolonial education is not only a knowledge dissemination, but also a way to cultivate growth, allowing learners to face their own responsibilities in the climate crisis, transcend the limitations of self-interest, and embrace a sense of responsibility rooted in humility and service awareness (Morris, 2020).
References
Morris, K.B., 2020. Decolonizing solidarity: cultivating relationships of discomfort. In Pathways of Settler Decolonization, pp.62-79. Routledge.

Stein, S., Andreotti, V., Suša, R., Ahenakew, C. and Čajková, T., 2023. From “education for sustainable development” to “education for the end of the world as we know it”. In Education for Sustainable Development in the ‘Capitalocene’, pp.51-64. Routledge.

Sultana, F., 2022. The unbearable heaviness of climate coloniality. Political Geography. [Online]. 99, p.102638. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2022.102638