How are Canadian universities and colleges preparing the next generation of professionals to deal with climate change?

As the climate crisis intensifies, students across academic disciplines need the knowledge and skills to understand and act on climate change. Researchers at the University of Waterloo examined how climate change education is being integrated into Accounting, Architecture, Engineering and Planning programs across Canada. This work provides a snapshot of the current status of climate change education and informs next steps for advancing integration into course curriculum. Led by the Waterloo Climate Institute, this research is part of a broader effort to accelerate climate adaptation education in professional degree programs. 

From October 2024 to February 2025, researchers surveyed universities and colleges across Canada to assess the state of climate change education in four disciplines. The results, based on responses from 68 programs, are promising: 93% of programs are incorporating climate content in some form, and 68.3% of programs cover basic climate science. However, coverage varies: while over 80% of Architecture, Planning, and Civil & Environmental Engineering programs include climate topics, fewer than 30% of Accounting and other Engineering programs do the same. Encouragingly, respondents across all programs recognize climate change as relevant to students’ careers (relevance rated 4.21/5 overall).   

The survey also found that 82% of programs include Climate Change Mitigation, and 79% cover Climate Change Adaptation to some degree in their courses, most commonly as a topic in an existing course. This suggests students are learning about critical topics like emissions reduction, energy efficiency, carbon taxes, climate risks, and adaptation strategies. More research is needed to understand how these topics are taught in practice and the degree to which curriculum efforts are helping students acquire the necessary climate literacy and competencies to take climate action in their careers. 

To expand climate change education, we must address key barriers within institutions and programming. The survey identified the top barriers as time and financial constraints and a lack of instructor expertise. To overcome barriers and make progress in climate change education, programs and instructors need support in course development, access to teaching resources, and training in climate pedagogy. Without this, integrating climate content into “non-environmental” disciplines will remain a challenge. 

With a deeper understanding of the integration of climate change education across disciplines, we can move forward with enhancing degree programs and student knowledge to support a more sustainable future. To dive deeper into the survey results, please read the full report, available on our website. This report is part of the Accelerating Climate Education for the Next Generation of Professionals (ACE) project being implemented by the University of Waterloo Climate Institute, with funding support from Natural Resources Canada’s Climate Change Adaptation Program. 

Please note that the French version of the report will be available at the end of April.