Navigating climate emotions: a call for emotion-sensitive ESD – a scoping review

Purpose The climate crisis is the challenge of a lifetime and calls for a holistic educational approach. This paper aims to shed light on the affective dimension of the crisis, also referred to as climate emotions (CE), and their importance in advancing education for sustainable development (ESD). A scoping review was conducted to identify current approaches in higher education institutions (HEIs) on a global level, research gaps and implications for developing emotion-sensitive ESD learning environments. Design/methodology/approach Based on the paper’s theoretical framework, which highlights the currently underrepresented emotion-sensitive ESD, a scoping review maps the existing methods and practices currently used in HEIs worldwide to address CE in ESD. Based on the results of this review, this paper analyses existing approaches and identifies ways to strengthen holistic ESD by addressing the affective dimension of the climate crisis, thereby highlighting opportunities for further research and practical implications. Findings Ten studies met the inclusion criteria. The scoping review indicates that while existing pedagogical approaches in HEIs engage with the affective dimensions of sustainability learning, they rarely explicitly address CE. Transformative, action-based and sensory-based learning were identified as common approaches applied. However, deliberate development of advanced emotional competencies, such as emotion regulation, remains largely absent. This gap highlights the need for intentional pedagogical designs, with coaching-based and emotionally informed approaches emerging as promising strategies to help students navigate CE. Originality/value This paper discusses the influence of CE on sustainable behavior and the need for emotion-sensitive ESD to address CE within HEIs. The paper adds a new dimension to the discussion about the effects of the climate crisis and provides an overview of practical methods used in HEIs to address them. It links theoretical aspects of CE, emotional competencies and ESD, a combination rarely represented in climate crisis discourse.