Italy to make climate change study compulsory in schools

Reuters: Italy will become the first nation to require all schoolchildren to study climate change and sustainable development.

Education Minister Lorenzo Fioramonti of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement: “The entire ministry is being changed to make sustainability and climate the center of the education model. All state schools would dedicate 33 hours per year or almost one hour per school week to climate change issues from the start of the next academic year in September 2020.

I want to make the Italian education system the first education system that puts the environment and society at the core of everything we learn in school.”

Fioramonti goes on; “The entire education ministry is being changed to make sustainability and climate the center of the education model.”

Minister Fioramonti is also behind the popular proposals for taxes on airline tickets, plastics, and sugary foods to help pay for education and are being attacked by critics complaining taxes are too high already.  His progressive positions on the economy and the environment are the antithesis of Matteo Salvini’s hard-right League, which has overtaken 5-Star to become Italy’s most popular party with more than 30% of voter support. Surveys showed 70-80% of Italians backed taxing sugar and airline tickets.

The government has gotten off to a shaky start  with weeks of bickering over the budget. Fioramonti said the new government “will only last if it is brave,” and stops letting Salvini set the news agenda.

Exclusive: Italy to make climate change study compulsory in schools Reuters, November 5, 2019