Current Issues in Comparative Education - Volume 27 - Issue 1 - Special Issue 2025 - Comparative Education - Does One Future Matter More Than the ‘Other(ed)’?

Oct 15, 2026

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This essay offers a critical analysis of UNESCO’s Education for Sustainable Development 2030 framework (ESD 2030), arguing that its urgent climate agenda overlooks systemic injustice. It contends that capitalism and racism accelerate the climate crisis, and that colonial modernity enables exploitation by sustaining dehumanization. Drawing on Black critical theorists, the article argues for centering relationality that confronts racism and racialized violence, and it highlights how race-inclusive approaches in environmental education can better fulfill ESD 2030’s sustainability goals.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

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Pages7

Reading Time18 min

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Does One Future Matter More Than the ‘Other(ed)’?

Introducing Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) 2030 and the Racism Gap

A critique of the UNESCO Education for Sustainable Development 2030 framework

Current Issues in Comparative Education (CICE), Volume 27, Issue 1, Special Issue 2025 Does One Future Matter More Than the ‘Other(ed)’? A Brief Critical Analysis of the UNESCO Education for Sustainable Development 2030 Framework Srinitya Duvvuri New York University The United Nations Educational, Scientiﬁc and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) Education for Sustainable Development roadmap (ESD 2030) is a policy document that reiterates the urgency of the climate crisis and aﬃrms the central role of education in ensuring the survival of the planet. Building on nearly two decades of international policy on education for sustainable development, ESD 2030 highlights priority areas and recommendations for integrating education for sustainable development at all levels of society. Despite its urgent call to action, there is little to no attention paid to systemic issues such as capitalism and racism and their role in accelerating the climate crisis. This essay critically analyzes the ESD 2030 framework and makes a case for reckoning with past and present systemic injustice to combat the climate crisis eﬀectively. It examines how modernity has functioned as a justiﬁcation for colonial conquests and exploitation, and the role of racism in perpetuating the dehumanization that makes such activities possible. While ESD 2030 implicitly attempts to integrate empathy and relationality in its approach to sustainability education, this essay draws from Black critical theorists to argue why relationality should confront racism and racialized violence for it to have an enduring impact in education. The essay spotlights ways in which environmental education is taking a more critical and race-inclusive approach while honoring the principles that ESD 2030 proposes. Keywords: UNESCO, education for sustainable development, climate justice, critical theory. Introducing Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) 2030 and the Racism Gap The United Nations Educational, Scientiﬁc and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) rolled out a 73-page framework outlining the road ahead for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in 2020. It was built on the work of the Global Action Programme on ESD (GAP) from 2015-2019 and the UN Decade of ESD from 2003-2014. Opening with a powerful call to action that urges everyone to “learn to live diﬀerently” (UNESCO, 2020, p. 6), this framework (‘ESD 2030’) expands on the GAP priority action areas—advancing policy, transforming learning environments, building capacities of educators and trainers, empowering and mobilizing youth, and accelerating sustainable solutions at a local level. It oﬀers critical reﬂections and recommendations for implementation. ESD 2030 recognizes that environmental education, though typically associated with scientiﬁc knowledge of the environment, should evolve beyond a © 2025, Duvvuri. CC BY 4.0 . Current Issues in Comparative Education 27(1), 216-222. Does one future matter more than the ‘other(ed)’? A critique of the UNESCO Education for Sustainable Development 2030 framework scientiﬁc focus for it to be transformative. It calls for a disruption of “the ‘usual’ way of thinking, behaving or living” (UNESCO, 2020, p. 18), and emphasizes education as a means of empowering lifelong learners with the skills to build a more just society. This echoes what environmental justice movements around the world have been taking on in local, national, and global contexts. Examples include movements against the disproportionate hazardous dumping in African-American communities in the United States (U.S.) (Holiﬁeld, 2001), Indigenous movements against major eco-conservation organisations to protect their land rights (Survival International et al., 2021), and protests against forced displacement of nearly 7 million people due to illegal mining projects in Eastern Congo (Amnesty International, 2022) . These movements have in common the recognition of the threat that exploitative systems pose to

FAQs

What is ESD 2030 according to the document?

ESD 2030 is a UNESCO policy framework that sets priorities and recommendations for integrating education for sustainable development across society, built on earlier UNESCO and UN decade programs.

What major limitation does the essay identify in ESD 2030?

The essay argues that ESD 2030 weakens its call to action by avoiding explicit naming and accountability for systemic injustices such as racism and colonialism.

How does the essay propose improving sustainability education?

It argues for using relationality approaches that directly confront racism and racialized violence, drawing on Black critical theorists to make the impact enduring in education.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by OmBimo