This Special Issue was finalised at a pivotal moment in global history. We have finalised it, including the editorial, as the world was preparing for COP30 in Belém, Brazil. In this moment, we find ourselves holding a renewed sense of hope that this gathering may represent a turning point in addressing the accelerating environmental collapse that disproportionately affects vulnerable communities. At the same time, 2025 also witnessed the alarming rise of groups who deny climate change despite overwhelming empirical evidence (Binns, 2025). These contradictory forces reveal not only the scientific challenges before us but also the profound political, cultural and ideological questions we must confront. They call into question entrenched imaginaries—such as the fantasy of unlimited economic growth—that continue to promote unsustainable patterns of extraction, consumption and inequality. In this context, it is crucial to recognise that anthropogenic climate change and environmental crises constitute the defining challenges of our time (IPCC, 2023). Their impacts unfold across interlinked spatial and temporal scales, shaping and exacerbating inequalities in education, health and society. Importantly, these inequalities are not accidental: they are rooted in the enduring legacies of colonialism and in the continuing extractive practices of many Global North nations, whose prosperity has historically depended on the exploitation of natural resources and communities in the Global South (Gadotti Gandolfi, 2025; Quijano, 2007). For decades, researchers and practitioners have pointed to climate change and sustainability education (CCSE) as an essential dimension of a just and sustainable response (UNESCO-UNEP, 1990). Yet education itself has often been implicated in colonial projects, shaping teacher education and curriculum in ways that privilege Western knowledge systems and worldviews (Gandolfi Rodrigues et al., 2020). It is against this backdrop that this Special Issue sought to create a space for critical and collaborative dialogue between Global South and North education communities. Dialogue, understood here not simply as conversation but through a Freirean lens as an ethical and epistemic commitment (Freire, 2000/1972), offers the possibility of rethinking CCSE through relational, intercultural and transformative approaches (Rodrigues et al., 2020). In recent years, the British Educational Research Association (BERA), which publishes this journal and special issue, has increasingly become a platform for such interdisciplinary engagements, supported by initiatives such as the Education for Environmental Sustainability Special Interest Group and the growing presence of sustainability themes in the BERA Blog (Czerniawski, 2023). Nevertheless, as notable exceptions such as Puttick et al. (2023) demonstrate, much of this particular journal's CCSE scholarship has remained centred on the United Kingdom (e.g., Dunlop et al., 2022; Dunlop rather, it permeates lived experiences, community practices, cultural traditions, and everyday encounters with place. Vendrasco and Guerrero, for example, developed a study on the understanding and implementation of environmental education by non-formal educators working in zoos, aquariums, botanical gardens and national parks in a Global South, namely, Chile. Moreover, several contributions affirm the importance of Indigenous, Afro-descendant and other historically marginalised epistemologies in shaping CCSE. Kato in this case, between Keyna and England. Their findings reveal how empathy, collaboration and local agency can be nurtured through pedagogical designs that centre justice, community engagement and sustainability resilience. This justice orientation is further explored by Hetherington and Torres-Olave, who develop a material-dialogic theoretical framework for reimagining teacher education through cross-hemispheric collaboration. Their work challenges entrenched Global North paradigms and demonstrates how relational agency and transdisciplinary practices can support teachers in addressing climate injustices across multiple scales. In a different educational setting, Lee, Shiyama and Shafeeqa explore a cross-cultural project linking primary classrooms in the Maldives and England. Their findings highlight the potential of dialogic and arts-based approaches to cultivate epistemic justice by valuing diverse knowledge and positioning children as global citizens capable of co-constructing sustainable futures. Similarly, Wan and colleagues developed a study around raising awareness about local and global environmental issues, highlighting how fostering critical thinking about justice and equity was pivotal in the participants' experiences in this study. They examined how Hong Kong-based student teachers discuss climate issues and the climate change curriculum in dialogue with teachers based in England, revealing their identities in a global context as a result. Taken together, the papers in this Special Issue not only contribute to expanding the geographical and conceptual boundaries of CCSE but also collectively articulate a vision of sustainability education as a deeply relational, ethical and political field. Yet the collection also reveals key areas for further inquiry. Policy and policymaking dimensions of CCSE remain underrepresented across the contributions. As global environmental governance mechanisms such as COP30 continue to shape national policies and public discourse, future research must continue to interrogate how political decisions and policymaking, power dynamics and structural constraints influence educators' ability to enact meaningful and justice-oriented CCSE. Additionally, the absence of certain geographical contexts and curricular areas signals the need for more intersectional, interdisciplinary, dialogic and globally representative work. Engaging with subject areas beyond science and environmental education—including the arts, humanities, social sciences and civic education—may offer new pathways for understanding how climate change and sustainability resonate across different domains of learning, as some studies in this special issue have indeed endeavoured to explore. In conclusion, this Special Issue illustrates the rich potential of critical and collaborative dialogue between Global South and North education communities. It demonstrates that such dialogue is not merely an academic exercise but a necessary and generative process through which CCSE can be reimagined in more inclusive, decolonial and justice-centred ways. The articles presented here invite readers to consider education as a space of hope and solidarity, even among profound ecological and sociopolitical challenges. As editors, we hope that the conversations initiated in this collection will continue to grow, deepen and diversify, contributing to the collective work of cultivating more just, sustainable and life-affirming futures. This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. Ethics statement is not applicable to this article Data sharing is not applicable to this article.
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