Climate education and solutions for gender equality
Examining the intersection of education and climate change through the lens of gender equality unveils the disproportionate impacts of environmental degradation on girls and women worldwide, and how they’re essential to developing and implementing climate solutions.
Wadi, GPE Youth Leader from Nigeria
In [Northern] Nigeria, as droughts worsen and agricultural livelihoods dwindle, families face heightened economic burdens that result in boys' education being prioritized over that of girls. The increasing frequency of extreme weather events further disrupts schooling, with floods and heatwaves making education infrastructure unreliable and inadequate.
Girls face disproportionately high barriers to access education due to family obligations and household responsibilities, safety concerns and societal expectations. In states like Kano and Sokoto where climate change exacerbates poverty and food insecurity, girls are frequently pulled out of school to help with domestic chores or contribute to household income, rarely returning to complete their education.
Investing in education is an important way to mitigate the effects of climate change in Nigeria. Education provides girls with the knowledge and skills they need to adapt to environmental changes and build resilience both as individuals and within their communities.
By fostering environmental literacy and promoting sustainable practices, education prepares girls to navigate changing climatic conditions while advocating for sustainable development initiatives. Girls are then also better positioned to influence decision-making processes that result in climate-conscious policy reforms.
Investing in girls' education not only improves their well-being, but also fosters a generation of climate-conscious leaders and environmentalists capable of directing Nigeria toward a more sustainable future.
Student at Al-Yaqeen Nursery and Primary School, Suleja village, Niger State.
Credit:
Arne Hoel/World Bank
Nada, Max Thibaso Edkins (MTE) Climate Ambassador from Egypt
Climate education can help women from all socioeconomic backgrounds and social roles play an important role in countries’ mitigation and adaptation efforts by:
Engendering conscious consumerism: Women’s power in the climate crisis starts from individual and household actions, and education can breed positive climate-conscious attitudes and behaviors, like reducing the dangers of consumerism.
Providing green skills to enter the green economy: Currently, efforts to develop women’s skills for green jobs come at a very late stage of a girl’s life, something I, myself, experienced as an Egyptian woman who learned about the climate crisis at 19. Climate education for girls is instrumental for them to acquire the necessary green skills to participate in the evolving green job markets.
Enhancing girls’ creativity and efforts in climate breakthrough development: Climate education plays a crucial role in girls and women’s ability to generate climate innovations and breakthroughs that are necessary for combating the climate crisis across borders.
Improving communities’ climate resilience: Each additional year of a girl’s schooling increases a country’s climate resilience status under the Notre Dame Environmental Change Index. Despite its potency, girls' education remains neglected in countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions, with only 4 countries in 2021 including girls in the fight against climate change.
Haya (8 years old) and Haneem (10 years old) carrying an artwork on water conservation. They did this as a climate change awareness activity at Gamal Abd El-Nasser Primary School in Fayoum governorate in Upper Egypt.
Credit:
UNICEF/UN0726815/Mostafa
Climate education for healthier, more resilient communities
Viewing the connection between education and climate change through the public health lens demonstrates the profound impacts environmental degradation is having on human health and well-being. Investing in climate education helps build resilience and promotes healthier communities.
Anzal, GPE Youth Leader from Pakistan
In Pakistan, a large proportion of the population lacks access to clean drinking water, basic hygiene facilities and good-quality nutrition. Additionally, Pakistan is very vulnerable to climate change. The floods in 2022 caused irreparable damage to the people in the provinces of Sindh, Balochistan and Punjab.
At my social enterprise Bagh-e-Sakina, we started a civic engagement program, the Empowering Young Minds Training Program, through which we’ve trained more than 500 students from low-income schools in Karachi.
The program is supported by Young Cities and Hive Pakistan, and we’ve adopted the ‘train the trainer model’ to train more than 15 facilitators in children's rights approaches.
Anzal conducting trainings for the Empowering Young Minds Training Program.
Credit:
Anzal Abbas
Children are also given non-scholastic Activity Books designed by Bagh-e-Sakina - Play, Learn and Act. Our activity books and workshops teach children about empathy, tolerance, climate change and civic engagement through play-based learning.
The Empowering Young Minds Training Program also helps students understand how we are vulnerable to climate change and to think about innovative ideas for adopting sustainable lifestyles and discouraging practices that threaten their respective environments.
Education about climate change develops a sense of community and shared responsibility among young people which is essential to developing adequate mitigation strategies for the climate crisis in the long term.
Jevanic, Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change member
Countries such as Saint Lucia and other small island developing states (SIDS) continue to face the uninvited burden of the multitudinous negative impacts of climate change. This extends to serious implications for public health that hinder lives and livelihoods to thrive and drive countries’ development agendas.
With rising temperatures, we’re now seeing an increase in vector-borne disease outbreaks and heat-related illnesses, such as heat stroke, in the Caribbean region that put a strain on an already heavily burdened health system.
The increasing instances of hurricanes, droughts and other extreme weather events also jeopardize water and food security, forcing citizens to adopt less healthier options for survival during and in the aftermath of these disasters.
Investment in education is a vital component to building resilience as it fosters a citizenry better aware of the expected impacts of climate change events and therefore better able to adapt in response.
Through greater investments in education, we can influence more sustainable behavioral practices that help to reduce the vulnerability of people to climate change impacts, whether from floods or other extreme weather events. Education must be seen as a useful tool to catalyze the growth of more resilient communities.
As described by these youth leaders, investing in education emerges as a multifaceted solution for the climate crisis. From empowering marginalized communities to fostering climate-conscious leadership, education has a pivotal role in shaping a more resilient and sustainable world.
This Earth Day, we call on governments, organizations and individuals to prioritize education as a cornerstone of climate action, safeguarding the planet for future generations.
The idea is simple: creating an open “Portal” where engaged and committed citizens who feel to share their ideas and offer their opinions on development related issues have the opportunity to do...
