In presiding over Cop28, the UAE can inspire countries to also focus on education

An artist work at the Expo City in Dubai. Pawan Singh / The National

In assuming the presidency of the Cop28 climate summit this year, the UAE is poised to focus the world's attention on the rapidly changing climate. And it is also calling for action to tackle the ongoing crisis in education. Many see these immediate global perils as distinct, yet they are inextricably linked.

The UAE is to be commended for championing the critical contribution of education to a sustainable future. We hope it will also encourage countries to deliver more and better funding to education to accelerate the transition to a greener world.

A full, quality education provides children with the knowledge to properly understand the mounting effects of climate change as well as the skills and tools to make their communities and economies greener. With climate change destroying livelihoods, displacing communities and tearing at the social fabric, education is also central to peace and stability, as the probability of conflict more than doubles in countries that have twice the incidence of educational inequality.

The education sector is rapidly becoming the new frontline for climate adaptation and countries require significant, innovative sources of financing to step up to the challenge. Lower-income countries that bear the brunt of the climate crisis simply don’t have the resources to ensure that education supports and magnifies investment in climate action. As a result, schools remain vulnerable to climate shocks when they could be transformed into centres of excellence for green solutions and sustainable practices.

There is a clear and growing demand from lower-income countries to leverage education in the fight against climate change through curriculum development, teacher training and improving construction standards for more resilient school facilities. Yet too few governments include education in their climate and disaster investments.

Increasing investment in education can deliver changes in behaviour and in livelihoods that will encourage more sustainable use of our dwindling natural resources. Instead, the share of total official development assistance allocated to education declined to just under 10 per cent in 2020, down from 12 per cent a decade earlier, while funding to climate action jumped to 33 per cent from 22 per cent in 2013.

A quality education better prepares children, families and communities to cope with many kinds of adversity. It has also been shown that girls' education, in particular, is the most important socioeconomic factor in boosting resilience to climate-driven disaster.

There is greater recognition of the importance of education by donors, but this is not reflected in funding allocations, with just 1.3 per cent of climate-related overseas development assistance allocated to education.

Already, nearly 1 billion girls and boys or roughly half the world’s children live in countries at “extremely high risk” for the harmful effects of climate change. Droughts and floods are two of the most obvious of these, but they also include the spread of infectious diseases into regions with newly favourable climates.

Events like these interrupt learning for around 40 million children every year, a figure likely to climb with the number and severity of weather events. Altogether, climate change is likely to displace more than 143 million people by 2050, disrupting the education and psychological well-being of millions of children.

This is no longer a risk, it’s a reality.

Aminath Shauna, Minister of Environment, Climate Change and Technology of the Maldives told the World Government Summit in the UAE last year that people living in some island states face a probable relocation crisis despite their countries doing more to combat climate change than larger nations.

The UAE was the first and is still the biggest donor from the Gulf region to the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) thanks to the $200 million it has provided since 2018. This generosity reflects the UAE’s recognition of a growing skills mismatch that is leaving millions of youths – particularly young women – underprepared for the future. Arab states are home to the highest and fastest-growing youth unemployment in the world, climbing to 25 per cent overall, while unemployment for young women is at 40 per cent.

We need other countries to follow the UAE’s lead in investing more in education, recognising that it will deliver stronger, more stable and more sustainable societies that can confront any challenge. The UAE can leverage Cop28 and the RewirED Summit organised by Dubai Cares and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to showcase the actions countries should be taking now, and to support nascent demand for curricula, pedagogy and teacher training that embrace climate change and environmental sustainability.

GPE is working with its partners to promote climate change education and disaster risk awareness through enhanced curriculum and teacher training at each stage of a child’s education. It's also using grant financing to ensure education infrastructure is made climate-smart. In Madagascar GPE funds are supporting revisions to the school calendar to align with agricultural and weather patterns to help minimise student and teacher absenteeism during the rainy, cyclonic and drought seasons. Through a new construction initiative, Madagascar is identifying safe locations to build schools and is adopting climate-proof designs so that school facilities are more capable of withstanding natural disasters.

In presiding over Cop28, the UAE can inspire other countries to prioritise education in the face of crises facing us today, including the impacts of climate change. Gulf nations can pledge their financial, technical and political leadership to boost education in lower-income countries so that coming generations can not only cope, but thrive.