Building communities of hope is the central task of climate educators in the 21st century

Interwoven crises of climate change, inequality and biodiversity loss threaten to throw increasingly wide shadows of doubt, despair and hopelessness as societies grapple with how to address these key challenges. Teaching and learning on climate change against this background requires sensitivity to this context and calls for pedagogies of hope. In this paper, I aim to offer provocation and encouragement to educators by exploring what this means by examining and synthesising the literature on three interconnected threads. First, I argue that fostering communities that are both critical and creative is vital for enabling students to engage generatively with climate change. Second, I reflect on interdisciplinarity as a necessary but deeply challenging component of climate education and caution against the risks of interdisciplinary ‘overreach’ that can leave students uninterested and teachers feeling powerless. Finally, I foreground relational pedagogies which put relationships and community at the heart of teaching, and centre issues of trust, reciprocity, and respect, while also making space for doubt, confusion and anxiety. Overall, I posit that building communities of hope is the central role of climate educators. Not, that hope is enough by itself, but hope is necessary; without hope the struggle for sustainability will be feeble and fragile.