Goyang mayor: 'Climate disaster begins in our daily lives'

Goyang Special City opened its 2026 Climate Environment School on Tuesday at the Goyang Arts Center, kicking off a six-week program with about 200 residents and city officials in attendance.

This year's program is organized around the theme "Our Transition in an Era of Climate Crisis." The school aims to go beyond raising awareness, helping citizens explore the concrete changes and actions needed in their communities and daily routines, as climate change is no longer a distant threat but an immediate challenge to everyday life.

"Climate disasters threatening our daily lives paradoxically originate from those very lives," Goyang Special City Mayor Min Kyung-sun said. "The solution lies not in grand slogans, but in everyone's 'practical transition' — changing our familiar lifestyle habits one by one."

Sessions will be held every Tuesday through Sept. 29, covering topics that connect climate change to everyday life: climate risks facing residents and businesses, species proliferation in the age of climate crisis, ecosystem shifts and societal transformation, social solidarity for overcoming the climate crisis, and sustainable consumption. Each session will be led by experts in the respective fields.

The city said it hopes the program will move participants beyond viewing climate change as simply an environmental issue, prompting them to think collectively about "our survival" rather than "my convenience" and to translate that thinking into daily action.

Meanwhile, Goyang Special City is building and expanding what it calls a "Goyang-style environmental education framework" to make environmental education accessible to everyone from toddlers and children to teenagers and adults. The city operates a range of environmental education programs, including the Climate Environment School, and is steadily developing local expertise by training nature interpreters and building the capacity of environmental activists.

The city said it plans to continue reinforcing its environmental education infrastructure so that learning translates into everyday practice, with the goal of becoming a sustainable environmental education city that achieves carbon neutrality together with its citizens.