Teaching climate change: Global warming, sustainable development now have dedicated centres in universities

NEW DELHI: “Many years ago, working on sustainability and climate-related mandates was more ‘nice’ than necessary. But now it has become mandatory. With extreme weather conditions, more people now want to know and study its cause and solutions,” said Miniya Chatterji, founding director of Anant School of Climate Action, a part of the private Anant National University.

The trend started with Stanford University in the United States which, in 2022, launched a new climate school. Columbia University’s climate school joined in and started degree courses in the field. In India, too, many have taken the plunge in the last few years. Though these schools have added new bachelor’s courses in climate change according to the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 mandates, there are challenges in demand and supply overall.

Tanu Jindal, group additional pro vice-chancellor (research and development), director of Amity University, pointed out that since last year, the university had witnessed a 20% increase in enrollments in its masters in environment science and engineering courses. “Due to this rise, we launched an MSc in climate change and green technology and a BSc in environmental science last year,” she said. “Earlier students were not keen on taking environmental science courses immediately after their 12th. But now many want to take up jobs in this area.”

TERI School of Advanced Studies (SAS), New Delhi, has also introduced courses on environmental science and resource management (ESRM), climate science and policy across all its courses along with a bachelor’s in environmental studies.

While the South Asian University launched a centre on climate change, green transition, and sustainability in July, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur launched its Kodak School of Sustainability in 2023. The school is planning to launch undergraduate and integrated postgraduate programmes in energy, environment and climate-related areas within one to two years.

Why climate change courses are key

Chatterji explained that the big reason for the rise in climate education is the massive job boom since 2022 due to which they started the school. “While timelines in attaining net zero carbon emission are decided for every country, there is nobody to implement it. That’s what makes it extremely relevant today,” she said.

Jindal said that more students are choosing climate technology now because we need a sustainable world and these courses will directly take you to industry-ready jobs. “Once students get to know about green technologies and once we have such technologies and skilled people in this area, issues related to climate change will automatically have a solution,” she stated.

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Ashish Garg, head of department, Sustainability Energy Engineering at IIT Kanpur, said rising energy demands are the main cause of issues related to global warming. “Because of climate change, the whole world is facing the challenge of sustainability and increase in energy demand is the driver behind it. It’s all interrelated. However, we need to prepare people and human resources who understand this problem, can develop solutions and work for industries as well as other sectors in energy, climate change, climate modelling, sustainability, environmental social governance (ESG) governance, and other facets of sustainability,” he said.

Climate change education: Curriculum

Chatterji said that Anant’s BTech in climate change has been pegged to the advancements in technology of the world along with multidisciplinarity.

“The course covers climate finance that teaches you how to fund these technologies. It has 54 hours of applied research with students working in actual industry live projects from all the companies working with Sustain labs. The course has eight streams in the first six semesters, including climate simulation, engineering, mathematics and climate engineering, climate chemistry, energy and technology, climate finance, design thinking and behavioural science and technology and society,” she said. Further, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US is a partner of the Climate School at Anant and provides support in specialisations technology and innovation and climate and policy.

In TERI SAS, the new addition to its already-available climate and development-focused courses are aspects of sustainable development which are more practice-based.

“The courses are very interdisciplinary with components on management, economics and climate along with a dedicated community programme where students have to go to rural communities and get involved in various aspects like ESG, development economics and others,” said Swarup Dutta, assistant professor and programme coordinator, MA in Sustainable Development Practice, department of policy and management studies, TERI School of Advanced Studies.

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Jindal said that in its master’s courses in green technologies, a basic understanding of science is required due to its technical nature. But a student doesn’t need to have a master’s in environmental sciences only. “We have kept it open for any discipline in sciences,” she said.

She said because climate change is an important subject, the University Grant Commission (UGC) has given four credit courses to each field. At Amity, the courses include training about the toxicants in the environment, water testing, air pollution monitoring techniques, soil testing techniques, health safety measures, how to patent natural pesticides, water testing kits, degrading the toxic substance matter faster in natural conditions and many others.

Industry placements

At Anant, back in 2022, the internship stipends were around Rs 17 lakh per annum for a BTech student. “The trend has continued and the paying capacity of this sector is very high as compared to other branches,” said Chatterji. She also said that in the last three years, they have seen 100% internship placements every year. “Students from BTech in climate change courses have an edge over others. Companies that have placed students include TechMahindra, Bharti Airtel, Jindals, Hitachi, IIT Mandi, different departments of United Nations in Africa and others,” she added.

Jindal stated that generally after a bachelor’s at Amity, students go for a master’s in climate and technology and after which the package varies from Rs 35,000- Rs 70,000 a month. Placement companies include grassroots organisations like the Centre for Science and Environment as well as ministry of earth sciences, ministry of environment forest, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and India Meteorological Department (IMD). Many students have opened their biodiversity non-profits as well, she added.

Challenges

Garg stated that since India has a net zero emission goal of 2070, programmes related to energy, economics and policy will see a high demand because of rising job opportunities. However, there are challenges.

Chatterji pointed out that online climate courses providing “cookie cutter” programmes are causing inertia in India’s climate action space. “We have to be careful with the kind of education that’s been rolled out and be wary of quality control and standardisation,” she said.

Anant is working closely with the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), the premier government body for technical education, on a policy for this. “We worked
with AICTE to create that nomenclature of BTech (Climate Technology) which took years and is now part of the AICTE handbook .”

Dutta noted that environmental studies students are getting jobs in big consulting companies with Rs 13- Rs 16 lakh per annum salaries that rival those of MBA-holders but they possess little practical training. “Organisations are closely working on climate change issues, but not in mitigation. Most courses talk about scientific aspects but are removing the social science and community aspects. Hence, the demand is huge, but quality supply limited,” he stated .