UN CC:Learn Ambassador Mr. Ramirez Tejada Promotes Regional Integration on Climate Change Education in Central America
9 March 2015, Antigua, Guatemala. Omar Ramirez has a way with words, and he has a passion for climate change education. In his home country of the Dominican Republic, he has been helping to transform the education sector by building political alliances and by working on curriculum reform with all national agencies. But, it is the whole Central American region that is becoming increasingly vulnerable to climate change, not only the Dominican Republic and its nearest neighbour Haiti. This was the message to the environment ministers, vice-ministers and ambassadors of member countries of the Central American Integration System (SICA) last week in Antigua, Guatemala. Omar is Executive Vice-President of the Dominican Republic’s National Council for Climate Change and Clean Development Mechanism (CNCCMDL), and also a UN Ambassador for Climate Change Learning.
Highlighting the importance of investing in people as a key element to effectively deal with the challenges posed by climate change, Omar presented a project for the development of a Regional Strategy dedicated to climate change education and learning. The aim is to promote climate change education across Central America and to create a network linking a variety of relevant governmental and non-governmental stakeholders in the various countries. This regional project builds on the experience of the Dominican Republic and benefits from technical and financial support from UN CC:Learn. This is the first time that a regional integration scheme meets to discuss the topic of climate change education, Omar underlined. This represents an important step to advance joint action on climate change and to empower future generations to be able to cope with increasing climatic uncertainty.
Omar’s intervention has also been highlighted in one the main newspapers of the Dominican Republic, as you can see at: http://hoy.com.do/presenta-estrategia-regional-de-educacion-y-cambio-climatico/
Related links
For further information, please visit:
http://uncclearn.org/news/across_central_america
http://uncclearn.org/news/COP20-sica-event
About UN CC:Learn
UN CC:Learn is a partnership of more than 30 multilateral organizations supporting countries to design and implement systematic, recurrent and results-oriented climate change learning. At the global level, the partnership supports knowledge-sharing, promotes the development of common climate change learning materials, and coordinates learning interventions through a collaboration of UN agencies and other partners. At the national level, UN CC:Learn supports countries in developing and implementing national climate change learning strategies. Through its engagement at the national and global levels, UN CC:Learn contributes to the implementation of Article 6 of the UNFCCC on training, education and public awareness-raising, and the 2012-2020 Doha Work Programme. Funding for UN CC:Learn is provided by the Swiss Government and UN partners. The Secretariat for UN CC:Learn is hosted by the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR).
Image 1: Mr. Ramirez Tejada, Executive Vice-President of the Dominican Republic’s National Council for Climate Change and Clean Development Mechanism (CNCCMDL) and UN Ambassador for Climate Change Learning.