April 2024 – The World Bank team has released a policy brief titled, “The Impact of Climate Change on Education and What to Do about It.” Education can be the key to ending poverty on a livable planet, but governments must act now to protect it. Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as cyclones, floods, droughts, heatwaves and wildfires. These extreme weather events are in turn disrupting schooling; precipitating learning losses, dropouts, and long-term impacts. Even if the most drastic climate mitigation strategies were implemented, extreme weather events will continue to have detrimental impacts on education outcomes.
Despite these catastrophic consequences, education remains overlooked in the climate policy agenda. Education made up less than 1.3 percent of climate-related official development assistance in 2020 and mentioned in less than 1 in 3 Nationally Determined Contribution plans. This paper lays out four concrete ways in which governments can protect education systems from climate change so that their positive impacts on economic development, poverty alleviation, and social cohesion can be sustained and boosted. These are: (i) education management for resilience; (ii) school infrastructure for resilience; (iii) ensuring learning continuity in the face of climate shocks; and (iv) leveraging students and teachers as change agents. The paper presents an actionable agenda for each of these with operational examples in different contexts.