A key project of RCE Greater Western Sydney, the Hawkesbury Resilience Project engaged and empowered residents to act on climate change. Residents of the Hawkesbury are not only experiencing and responding to acute incidents such as fires, floods, and heatwaves, but are experiencing the many social and ecological flow-on effects.

Key points:

• From 16-18 November, 2021, 351 attendees from across the Global RCE Network gathered online for the 12th Global RCE Conference (hosted by RCE Scotland and the Global RCE Service Centre) to explore action through learning in a time of global crises.

The UN University (UNU) has begun developing a new postgraduate degree specialisation on the Paris Agreement on climate change, in collaboration with the Secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It will be the first of its kind to be offered by a UN organisation. 

• The first ever RCE Youth Webinar was held on 11 August, 2021, commemorating International Youth Day 2021.
• Five RCE youth members from Australia, Colombia, Zambia, Japan, and Denmark shared youth-led climate-action initiatives conducted in their RCE communities.
• Key points of action identified within the breakout sessions included the integration of environmental education in schools, raising public awareness, and creating platforms to enable knowledge-sharing and community engagement.

Calling all young eco-artists! Share your voice through art and inspire others to take action on the climate crisis. Unleash your creativity and have your work seen by a global audience!  

RCE Ogun, Covenant University emerged as the 2021 winner of the International Green Gown Award for Small Institutions. The International Green Gown Virtual Awards took place on the 7 July, 2021 as part of the Higher Education Sustainability Initiative (HESI) event at the United Nations High-Level Political Forum. 

The Race to Zero is a global campaign to mobilise leadership and support from businesses, cities, regions, investors and universities for a healthy, resilient and fair, zero carbon recovery that prevents future threats, creates decent jobs, and unlocks inclusive, sustainable growth.  

UNEP, Second Nature and EAUC are working together to represent the higher education sector in this race and already have more than 700 signatories on board with the aim of reaching 1,000 by COP26 in November 2021.  

The 2nd RCE Global Webinar, 'Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals: action through learning in a time of global crises', took place on 8 June, 2021. Hosted by RCE Scotland and the Global RCE Service Centre, this webinar was the second of two 'bridge' events between the 2020 RCE Regional Meetings and the 12th Global RCE Conference to be held in Autumn 2021. Chaired by Dr. Rehema White, RCE Scotland, the event saw over 90 participants coming together to focus on taking action on the most pressing of issues: climate change.

During the Global Action Programme (GAP) on ESD, from 2015-2019, close to 140 climate education projects were conducted by RCEs across 32 countries. Not only did these projects have a focus on SDG 13 (Climate Action), but all were tied to SDG 4 (Quality Education) and covered a range of other sustainable development challenges.