Citation: Moshou, H.; Drinia, H. Climate Change Education and Preparedness of Future Teachers—A Review: The Case of Greece. Sustainability 2023, 15, 1177. https:// doi.org/10.3390/su15021177 Academic Editor: Anmin Duan Received: 28 November 2022 Revised: 5 January 2023 Accepted: 5 January 2023 Published: 8 January 2023 Copyright: © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). sustainability Review Climate Change Education and Preparedness of Future Teachers—A Review: The Case of Greece Hara Moshou and Hara Drinia * Department of Geology and Geoenvironment, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Panepistimiopolis, 15784 Athens, Greece * Correspondence: cntrinia@geol.uoa.gr Abstract: Climate change is a global issue with implications at many levels. Mitigation and adaptation to its growing impacts are of paramount importance for human livelihoods. Shaping beliefs, attitudes, and values is important in this respect. This shaping takes place mainly during the sensitive childhood years, so the orientation in primary education is particularly targeted. Our overall goal is to lay the foundations for a decent education on climate change that can lead to the desired results. On this basis, the first thing to be considered is the information that will be provided to students by their teachers. The beliefs that are held by primary school teachers in relation to climate change are an important issue for the proper performance of their work. Previous surveys of teachers have had disappointing results. In this paper, an attempt is made to review the research that has been conducted in relation to the knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes of future primary school teachers (either during their studies or during their internship and pre-service training). Emphasis is placed on the case of Greece. Our aim is to highlight the existing research in Greece, by comparing and contrasting data from other countries. Climate change is a very complex issue, and addressing it requires clearly defined actions. Is it possible to achieve the result we need by adding another competence to the already complex role of the teacher? As this review reveals, the little research on the readiness of future teachers suggests that they are not qualified to teach about climate change. It remains to be investigated whether it would be preferable to entrust this responsibility to individuals who have a fuller and more comprehensive understanding and education towards the issue of climate change. Keywords: climate crisis; awareness; misconceptions; learning; pre-service teachers; Greek; educational system 1. Introduction “Climate” is defined as the average of weather conditions in a region over at least thirty years and includes seasonal variations and extreme weather events [1]. Climate change is defined by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change [2] (p. 3) as “a change in climate that is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity, alters the composition of the global atmosphere, and is in addition to the natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.” Climate change is an environmental issue of global scale. The climate undergoes natural historical changes over centuries/millennia. However, human intervention in nature has induced significant changes in the way climate has historically changed, causing abrupt and rapid climate changes relative to historical past changes [3]. Climate can, therefore, change due to natural factors—such as volcanic activity, variations in solar activity, changes in the Earth’s orbit, and pressure fluctuations [4], however, these have resulted in minor climate changes [5]. Over the last two hundred years, successive scientific discoveries have led to an in- crease in human life expectancy and radically changed the human way of life [5]. Humanity has suddenly taken the earth’s natural resources for granted, possibly viewing them as Sustainability 2023, 15, 1177. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15021177 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability