Ed­u­ca­tion is one of the strate­gies for achiev­ing the Unit­ed Na­tions’ cli­mate goal to re­duce emis­sions to net ze­ro by 2050. Giv­en the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of the Caribbean to haz­ardous cli­mat­ic con­di­tions, home­grown or ex­pa­tri­ates based in the re­gion should feel per­son­al­ly re­spon­si­ble for safe­guard­ing their com­mu­ni­ties, hav­ing had first­hand ex­pe­ri­ences with hur­ri­canes, flood­ing, drought, ex­ces­sive heat, vol­canic erup­tions, high tides and oth­er cli­mat­ic cat­a­stro­phes. Some of these cli­mat­ic dis­rup­tions sig­nif­i­cant­ly af­fect ath­letes’ train­ing sched­ules and the host­ing of ma­jor com­pe­ti­tions.

Cur­ricu­lum Main­stream­ing

While sport is af­fect­ed by cli­mate change, sport al­so con­tributes to car­bon emis­sions. That is why over 280 sport fed­er­a­tions, in­clud­ing the In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC) and Fed­er­a­tion of In­ter­na­tion­al Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tions (FI­FA), have signed to the UN Sports for Cli­mate Ac­tion Frame­work to de­vel­op a cli­mate ac­tion agen­da for sport.

Clus­ters of in­di­vid­u­als in the re­gion un­der­stand the im­pact and ap­pre­ci­ate the ur­gency for cli­mate-re­silient sport prac­tices. Cur­ricu­lum will be re­vised to fos­ter cli­mate lit­er­a­cy among stu­dents and sport prac­ti­tion­ers in the re­gion to in­crease the num­ber of cli­mate change agents and ad­vo­cates. Many stu­dents at The UWI and oth­er in­sti­tu­tions pur­sue en­vi­ron­men­tal sci­ence, ge­og­ra­phy, ge­ol­o­gy, cli­mate stud­ies and re­lat­ed sub-dis­ci­plines, a process that en­hances their knowl­edge about cli­mate change.

Cli­mate mit­i­ga­tion in the re­gion should be every­one’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. There­fore, cli­mate stud­ies main­stream­ing, the process of em­bed­ding ap­plic­a­ble, rel­e­vant and re­lat­able con­tent or skill in the teach­ing of es­tab­lished cours­es to deep­en learn­ing, is be­ing pro­posed to boost cli­mate lit­er­a­cy. Cli­mate stud­ies will be treat­ed in the same way that writ­ing and gen­der, to a less­er ex­tent, have been main­streamed.

Cur­ricu­lum at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies has nev­er been sta­t­ic. The foun­da­tion­al Use of Eng­lish writ­ing course has evolved in­to Aca­d­e­m­ic Lit­era­cies. Tech­nol­o­gy and re­search meth­ods have al­so been main­streamed to vary­ing de­grees. Cli­mate change should al­so be main­streamed or taught across the cur­ricu­lum. This way, stu­dents will learn over time to view cli­mate change as the uni­ver­sal oc­cur­rence that it is, rather than a con­cen­trat­ed area of study or iso­lat­ed top­ic of in­ter­est for the sci­ence-mind­ed and/or ec­cen­tric.

Cli­mate Lit­er­a­cy

Cli­mate knowl­edge that goes be­yond aware­ness will be an­oth­er tool for uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents to be­come cli­mate lit­er­ate. That is, the com­pe­tence to un­der­stand, in­ter­pret and com­mu­ni­cate cli­mate-re­lat­ed ma­te­r­i­al that is read, heard and seen. Us­ing cli­mate in­for­ma­tion to change prac­tices, ad­vis­ing on cli­mate-smart ini­tia­tives, and over time, be­ing in­spired to sup­port and act on cli­mate caus­es, are ev­i­dence of cli­mate lit­er­a­cy.

Cli­mate Change in Sport

A pre­lim­i­nary Strate­gic Scop­ing Study on Cli­mate Change and Sport in the Caribbean sup­ports the main­stream­ing of cli­mate change in the Fac­ul­ty of Sport pro­grammes at The UWI. As an ex­am­ple, in­clude con­tent, case study and as­sess­ment tasks that will guide ki­net­ics ma­jors in un­der­stand­ing how mus­cle func­tion changes un­der dif­fer­ent cli­mat­ic con­di­tions. Ex­pos­ing coach­es and ath­let­ic train­ers to tech­niques for ath­letes whose phys­i­olo­gies make them sus­cep­ti­ble to ex­treme cli­mat­ic con­di­tions, is an­oth­er way of main­stream­ing cli­mate stud­ies in sport. Sport man­agers must al­so be busi­nesslike about cli­mate-smart re­silient sport.

Sport in Cli­mate Change

An­oth­er note­wor­thy rec­om­men­da­tion is ex­tend­ing main­stream­ing to sport in cli­mate change, en­vi­ron­ment and sus­tain­abil­i­ty cours­es. These ar­eas of study are cur­rent­ly be­ing of­fered in the pure and ap­plied sci­ences. Prepara­to­ry process­es for main­stream­ing Sport in Cli­mate stud­ies will in­clude re­view­ing cours­es with­in pro­grammes to iden­ti­fy rel­e­vant ar­eas for in­fus­ing sport in cli­mate, en­vi­ron­men­tal and sus­tain­abil­i­ty pro­grammes.

Where­as there is a di­rect dis­ci­pli­nary link be­tween sport sci­ence and cli­mate stud­ies, it is al­so fea­si­ble to build cli­mate lit­er­a­cy by in­te­grat­ing cli­mate con­tent in cours­es that re­side in the hu­man­i­ties. Aca­d­e­m­ic writ­ing is com­pul­so­ry for first-year stu­dents. Though stu­dent choice mo­ti­vates writ­ing, writ­ing in­struc­tors may se­lect sport and cli­mate change ar­ti­cles as texts for analy­ses.

Mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary con­tent

In­ter­ac­tion with cli­mate change con­tent will in­vari­ably draw stu­dents’ at­ten­tion to the so­cial in­equities and the dis­pro­por­tion­ate ways in which groups are af­fect­ed by cli­mate change. Turn­ing the spot­light on sport and cli­mate change in the Caribbean would al­so re­veal a myr­i­ad of so­cial and eco­nom­ic dis­place­ment in the re­gion. Hence, the case for main­stream­ing sport in cli­mate change in the So­cial Sci­ences is just as com­pelling as it is in the Sci­ences and Hu­man­i­ties.

In oth­er words, a frame­work to treat cli­mate stud­ies as mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary con­tent that is taught across the cur­ricu­lum should bol­ster the uni­ver­si­ty’s push to­wards grad­u­at­ing crit­i­cal thinkers and ad­vanc­ing cli­mate ac­tivism.

Dr Claudette Coote-Thomp­son is Cur­ricu­lum De­vel­op­ment Spe­cial­ist in the Fac­ul­ty of Sport, Deans Of­fice, Mona cam­pus and can be con­tact­ed at claudette.cootethomp­son@uwi­mona.edu.jm