Climate education for every student

SDG 13.3Climate education for every student

UPES makes sure every student learns about climate change, and trains specialists for the energy transition.

• For everyone. The School for Life, which serves students across all of UPES's schools, includes a four-credit Environment, Sustainability and Climate Change course with a theory part and a Living Lab.
• Specialist degrees. Programmes such as the B.Tech in Clean Energy Technologies, alongside courses and degrees in climate science, renewable energy, sustainability and environmental studies.
• Skills and certificates. Certification programmes, fieldwork, workshops and the HSFEA conference on health, safety, fire and environmental aspects of sustainability build practical skills.
• ATMOSFAIR. Each September, around World Ozone Day, the student GreenUp club runs ATMOSFAIR. Its seventh edition in September 2020 held a national webinar on climate change, risk resilience and livelihoods, opened by Padma Bhushan Dr Anil Prakash Joshi of HESCO, with scientists from the Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology and the Wildlife Institute of India.
• Learning by doing. Students have made edible cutlery and zero-waste products, and presented prototypes and climate solutions at the Sustainability Fair.

Climate learning beyond the classroom

• Forest officers. The School of Law delivered 40 lectures to Indian Forest Service probationers (2023–2025 batch) at the Indira Gandhi National Forest Academy, Dehradun, in two modules in November 2024 and May–June 2025, on environmental law, governance and climate change strategy.
• Hands-on environmental technology. With the Uttarakhand Science Education and Research Centre (USERC), the Sustainability Cluster ran a three-day hands-on training programme on environmental technology.
• Wildfires. A Sustainability Cluster lecture on 20 July 2023 explained the dynamic behaviour of wildfires, a growing climate hazard in the Himalaya.
• Applied sustainability. Prof Corey Glickman led a workshop on applied sustainability for transformative impact, on using AI and machine learning to speed up sustainability initiatives and on collaboration between academia, industry and government.
• Open masterclasses and summits. A climate risk profiling masterclass (18 March 2025), Sustainability Fair 3.0 (9–10 April 2025) and Energy Summit 2025, which included a model and poster event for school students, cover climate risks, adaptation planning and mitigation.