Over the next week or so, I’m going to publish a short series of blog posts rather than one long, exhaustive “think piece”.
The issues I want to explore here – climate literacy, safeguarding, institutional responsibility, and young people’s wellbeing – are frequently flattened into soundbites or false binaries: alarmist vs reassuring, activist vs neutral, science vs politics. None of those framings are particularly helpful if you actually work with children and young people. This series is an attempt to slow the conversation down and root it where it belongs: in evidence, professional responsibility, and duty of care.
It is not about blaming teachers, singling out schools, or prescribing a single “correct” response. It is about asking what becomes reasonable – and what becomes unreasonable – once certain risks and impacts are no longer hypothetical.
Why now?
I’m not suddenly interested in climate literacy, safeguarding, or institutional responsibility. Long‑time readers will know I’ve been writing about these intersections for years – particularly around eco‑anxiety, inclusive climate education, and the ethical shortcomings of “just teach the facts” approaches. What has changed is not the argument, but the evidence base now sitting around it.
In the past few months, we’ve seen three substantial pieces of work emerge from very different parts of the system:
- A national security assessment formally identifying biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse as risks to UK security and prosperity (quietly released on 20 January 2026).
- The first sector‑wide statistical analysis of carbon emissions from schools in England, using real operational data rather than estimates.
- The latest Children’s People and Nature Survey from Natural England, offering population‑level insight into how children experience, value, and access nature.
None of these reports are written for educators. None of them tell schools what to do. None of them use the language of curriculum reform or pedagogy. However, taken together, they give us a clearer picture of the risk landscape young people are growing up in, the institutional systems they move through, and the professional responsibilities of those of us working with them.
What this series is (and is not)
Before going any further, I want to be very clear about boundaries. I’ve done my utmost to ensure this series is:
- grounded in publicly available, verifiable evidence
- framed through safeguarding, wellbeing, and professional duty of care
- critical of systems and omissions, not individuals
- explicit about uncertainty and limits
This series is not a call for climate activism in classrooms, an attempt to shame schools or teachers, a claim that education can “solve” climate change, nor an argument that every subject should suddenly teach climate science. I don’t think those moves are ethical, helpful, or supported by the evidence from the reports.
The three reports I’ll be working with
This series will return repeatedly to three recent reports. I’ll explore each in depth in later posts; for now, I want to be explicit about what they are and what they are not.
1. The National Security Assessment on biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse (January 2026)
Released with little public fanfare, this UK government assessment concludes – with high analytical confidence – that global biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation pose serious risks to national security and prosperity. The report does not predict imminent collapse everywhere. It does not claim certainty about timelines. It does not mention schools.
What it does do is normalise the idea that environmental degradation is no longer a marginal environmental concern but a planning assumption across food security, health, migration, economic stability, and geopolitical risk. For education, this matters not because schools are security actors, but because foreseeable risk is a core safeguarding concept.
2. Count Your Carbon: Measuring the carbon impact of schools in England (2026)
This statistical report analyses greenhouse‑gas emissions data from over 1,600 schools in England that used the Count Your Carbon calculator in the 2024–25 academic year.
Its findings are uncomfortable, but also clarifying:
- The average school emits hundreds of tonnes of CO₂e each year.
- Around three‑quarters of those emissions are Scope 3 – commuting, procurement, food, travel – largely outside pupils’ control.
- Transport alone accounts for roughly 40% of emissions.
- Per‑pupil emissions are higher in rural settings and significantly higher in SEND contexts, reflecting structural, not behavioural, factors.
The report does not rank schools, assign fault, nor evaluate moral performance. What it does is make visible something we often talk around: schools are not neutral systems. They are part of the material conditions young people inhabit.
3. The Children’s People and Nature Survey for England (2025)
This survey captures how 8‑15 year‑olds experience nature: where they go, how often, how they feel about it, and how connected they feel. Some findings are hopeful:
- An overwhelming majority of children say being in nature makes them happy.
- Reported nature connection has increased since 2021.
Others should give us pause:
- Access to green and natural spaces is uneven, with clear differences linked to income, disability, ethnicity, and place.
- Wanting to “do more” for the environment does not necessarily translate into action, agency, or security.
The survey does not diagnose anxiety, claim causation between nature and mental health, nor make policy demands. But what it does show is that nature is already emotionally salient in children’s lives – and that protective factors are unevenly distributed.
Why bring these together at all?
None of these reports, on their own, tell educators what they should do. But together, they shift the ground beneath some familiar assumptions:
- that climate change is primarily a future issue for young people
- that schools’ main role is to impart “neutral knowledge”
- that institutional systems can be treated as background when talking about responsibility
- that literacy and wellbeing can be neatly separated
When risks are recognised as systemic, foreseeable, and uneven, the question for education is no longer “is this political?” but “what constitutes reasonable care?”
That is a safeguarding question, not an activist one.
What comes next
Over the next few posts, I’m going to take each of these strands and explore them carefully:
- what children’s lived experiences tell us about wellbeing and care
- what school carbon data reveals about responsibility and modelling
- what it means for educators when ecological risk is formally recognised at national level
I’m not interested in panic or performative urgency. I am interested in clarity – especially for educators and youth‑facing professionals who are tired of being told this is either “not your job” or “entirely your fault”. If climate literacy is becoming a safeguarding issue, as I have long argued, then we owe it to young people to make that case carefully, credibly, and without fear‑mongering.
The next post will start where safeguarding always should: with children.
Next: Part 2 – Children already know this matters – what Natural England’s ‘People and Nature Survey’tells us about wellbeing, inequality, and care
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