THERE IS no doubt that the greatest threat facing humanity is climate change. The severe flooding and droughts ravaging many parts of the world have all been attributed to the effects of climate change. The proverbial chickens have come home to roost. This is exactly what climate scientists have been predicting over the past three decades.

World leaders who were once sceptical to heed the advice of the global scientific community are now forced to rethink their national developmental agendas, now that their economies are being ravaged by rainfall deficits and droughts to excessive rainfall and severe flooding.

If the global levels of carbon dioxide emissions are not substantially reduced in order to keep global temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius, there will be further catastrophic consequences for the global community. Time is running out and drastic cuts in carbon dioxide emissions are needed. Lifestyles and economic models must be reset.

Beginning with global political will and enacted through a rigorous global education campaign, governments the world over must act with haste to do their part to avoid a global climate catastrophe. Educators have a significant role to play in this global fight to save our planet from self-inflicted destruction brought on by greed and ignorance.

Education systems must be transformed to catalyse the fight against climate change and to support a just transition to a more sustainable world. Students have a right to acquire the relevant knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary to sustain our world for present and future generations. They have the right to receive an education which prepares them for the world of work in a green economy.

It is time to come together to build something more resilient in our education institutions, our communities and our economy, while considerably reducing our ecological footprint through a just transition. We must deliver on our commitment to climate change education and education for sustainable development in the Paris Agreement (Article 12) and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (targets 4.7, 12.8 and 13.3).

School curricula at all levels must prominently feature climate change education in keeping with clearly defined and articulated national climate change education policies. Students must be able to leave school climate literate and equipped with the disposition, skills and knowledge needed to not just confront climate change, but to also adapt to associated uncertainties.

Transforming a carbon-based economy to a green one that is self-sustaining is not going to be an easy battle, given the immense political and economic clout that global multinationals are capable of wielding. The climate change revolution must germinate and blossom in our schools and classrooms if we are to give our future generations a fighting chance to compensate for our decades of wanton waste and overindulgence.

Into their hands we have placed the burden to save our planet from further destruction - an unfair debt that we could have