Just in time for Earth Day 2026, the UC Davis Academic Senate on April 16 adopted a resolution to add Climate Change Literacy to General Education requirements. The resolution was written by a group of faculty across different undergraduate colleges and endorsed unanimously by the Associated Students of UCD (ASUCD). 

The new UC Davis Climate Literacy GE will require all undergraduate students to take one course covering climate change. Students will be able to choose from a wide variety of courses that cover climate from different disciplinary lenses, including civil engineering, public policy, climate justice, English literature, urban design and planning, and human physiology. The formal roll-out is planned for the Fall of 2030 – a time frame chosen to provide the Academic Senate with sufficient time to build instructional capacity and ensure a smooth roll-out.

UC Davis becomes the second University of California campus to enact such a climate literacy requirement, following the successful adoption of the Jane Terranes Climate Change GE requirement by the UC San Diego Academic Senate in Spring 2024.

This new UC Davis Climate Change Literacy GE requirement will ensure that future UC Davis students graduate with a foundational understanding of the climate crisis, including climate literacy, climate justice, resilience skills, climate solutions, and the actionable paths and career opportunities that these entail.

The adoption of its Climate Change Literacy GE is a natural next step for the UC Davis campus, which leans heavily on its climate and sustainability credentials to recruit undergraduate students. UC Davis has been ranked 1st in the nation for campus sustainability for the past 10 years. It has adopted an ambitious fossil free pathway plan that is on track to achieve a 30% reduction of campus-wide greenhouse gas emissions from 2019 by approximately 2030, and aims for a near-complete phase out of fossil fuels by 2040.

 UC Davis has also embraced the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals as guides for its policies–including UN Sustainability Goal 4: Quality Education.

According to Chancellor Gary May: “At UC Davis, sustainability is embedded into every part of the university, It’s at the heart of our infrastructure planning and woven into our coursework that includes sustainability principles across disciplines.”