Education and Climate Change: Interlinkages, Evidence, and Implications

• In Event: Does Education Matter for Climate Action? Assessing the Evidence and Harnessing Youth Potential for Impact

Proposal

Education has the potential to play the central role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, and transform our relationship with the planet and our collective well-being (UNESCO, 2016). However, it remains an underappreciated aspect of the conversation around climate change adaptation and mitigation.

The GEM policy paper on climate change and education highlights the evidence on the interlinkages between education and climate change. First, it provides a synthesis on how climate change adversely impacts education through natural disasters and global warming, and the growing awareness around the need for resilience planning. Second, it examines the data and evidence on how education has enhanced knowledge and awareness, beliefs and attitudes. There is strong evidence that more educated youth and adults are more likely to have pro-climate knowledge, literacy and awareness, and express concern over the current state of affairs (Angrist et al., 2023). However, evidence on the knowledge among surveyed young people calls into question the quality of existing climate change education in school systems (UNESCO, 2022). This section includes analysis from the GEM Report climate change education profiles to map how climate change education policies are associated with climate literacy and beliefs.

It then analyses whether the enhanced knowledge and awareness translates to adaptation and mitigation outcomes. Educated individuals are more likely to have higher adaptive capacity and resilience to climate change, and so suffer fewer damages from the consequences of climate change. However, while there is growing appreciation of the need to change individual behaviors and help support carbon neutral lifestyles, knowledge does not automatically translate to mitigating behaviors and actions.

The paper highlights the importance of an enabling environment that includes systemic supports, cross-sectoral collaborations, and inclusive and participatory processes to harness the potential of education to motivate pro-climate behaviors and actions by consumers and producers, engage youth as agents of change, and develop a green and innovative workforce.

In line with the CIES theme on the power of protest, the presentation will highlight the evidence on the involvement of young people in the climate conversation. Youth are the voice and face of the climate movement, and often seek education and climate justice (Karsgaard & Davidson, 2023; Martiskainen et al., 2020). The paper argues that for their voices to shape inclusion of climate change in education and overall transformation of economies, there needs to be intentional steps taken to make such processes inclusive and participatory, with emphasis on providing decision-making space in education and other sectoral spaces (Han & Ahn, 2020). It will examine existing analytical work on youth movements for climate action, and also the engagement of youth and other marginalized groups (such as indigenous populations) in other social movements to derive lessons.

The policy paper concludes with recommendations for data and evidence, monitoring needs, and advocacy and dissemination strategies to harness the potential of education for climate action. In doing so, the policy paper will aim to broaden the conversation beyond individual responsibility and motivate more cross-sectoral engagement.

Author

• Priyadarshani Joshi, UNESCO