NOT FOR COMMERCIAL USE Climate Change Education for Sustainability in Brazil: A Status Report RACHEL TRAJBER AND YOKO MOCHIZUKI Abstract This article maps and explains Brazil’s policies, strategies, plans and initiatives related to Climate Change Education (CCE), in the overall con- text of Environmental Education (EE) and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). The case of Brazil offers useful insights on how to enhance climate response through education because of its unique strength in climate policy making and its established EE tradition. The article traces the development of EE in Brazil and provides an overview of the relations between EE and climate change legislations and public poli- cies. Although Brazil established a strong legal framework for EE and the Ministries of the Environment and Education have adopted a number of initiatives to implement the EE policies, climate change legislation add- resses education rather superficially. Many other challenges remain, including fully integrating EE in the mainstream work of the Ministry of Education, enhancing the impact of EE policies and programmes, and creating synergies between EE and a number of climate-related education initiatives developed in other areas such as science and technology. Keywords: ESD, environmental education, climate change education, policy, Brazil INTRODUCTION B razil, a federal republic consisting of 26 states and one federal district (Brasília), covers nearly half of South America. Accounting for more than 15 per cent of R ESEARCH Copyright © 2015 SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC) www.sagepublications.com Vol 9(1): 44–61 10.1177/0973408215569113 Rachel Trajber, Consultant, Cemaden Education, Ministry of Science, Technology and Inno- vation, Brazil, and Former General Coordinator (2004 to 2011), Environmental Education General Coordination at the Brazilian Ministry of Education, Brazil. E-mail: racheltrajber@gmail.com Yoko Mochizuki (Corresponding author), Programme Specialist, Section of ESD, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Paris. E-mail: y.mochizuki@unesco.org