Authors: Yasmine Sherif and Petra Heusser*
Education is in crisis across the globe. Climate change is one of the leading causes.
In 2024, approximately 242 million students experienced school disruptions due to climate events. The education sector experiences financial losses of US$4 billion annually due to cyclones alone.
The power, frequency and impact of these climate hazards are becoming more severe every year, especially on the frontlines of armed conflict, forced displacement and protracted crises. When disasters hit, education is one of the first sectors to be impacted, leading to both economic and non-economic loss and damage. This can include damaged or destroyed infrastructure, lost school days, reduced learning capacity, psychosocial distress and trauma, and possible long-term dropout.
A staggering 234 million children in crises need urgent support to access quality education, according to Education Cannot Wait (ECW). Of these, over 85 million are out of school all together.
Take a look at the 2022 floods in Pakistan, which damaged or destroyed nearly 30,000 schools and put the education of more than 3.5 million children on hold. Billions of dollars are still needed to rebuild from this disaster. Education should be a central pillar of these efforts. It’s an investment in fast-acting, lifesaving humanitarian action, and an investment in long-term climate resilience and sustainable development.
Last year, heavy flooding devastated regions of the Sahel, East Africa and Central Asia, while severe droughts gripped Northwestern and Southern Africa, as well as parts of the Americas. This is exacerbating food insecurity and driving record levels of displacement globally, according to UN OCHA.
As these crises come together, we see more insecurity, more conflict, more forced displacement and more children out of school.
Education Action Essential Toward Climate Action
Education can play a catalytic role in climate change mitigation and adaptation investments by shaping mindsets, behaviours skills and innovation. Those with more education exhibit greater disaster preparedness and response, experience reduced adverse effects and recover more quickly from disasters. Women’s education is particularly instrumental in improving the adaptive capacity of their families and communities, and making children more resilient to climate change.
The importance of addressing the impact of climate change on education, and leveraging education to take climate action, was recognised in the Declaration on the Common Agenda for Education and Climate Change at COP28 in Dubai, which has since been endorsed by 91 States.
And yet, very little climate finance goes to education – only 1.5% in 2021. Moreover, just 2.4% of climate finance supported child-responsive activities between 2006 and 2023.
Enter the newly set up Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD), which is currently being operationalised. The fund represents a groundbreaking opportunity to make education – especially in climate-vulnerable and crisis-affected countries –central to climate action by acknowledging and addressing the economic and non-economic loss and damage related to the adverse effects of climate change.
A Value Proposition
Recently, the Geneva Global Hub for Education in Emergencies (EiE Hub) and its members delivered an important message to the Executive Director and the Board Members of the FRLD. The message highlights both the vulnerability of education to climate change and its critical role in the response to the climate emergency, calling on the FRLD to prioritise education in its allocations.
The recommendations include establishing education as a core priority area within the FRLD’s investment framework, establishing child-specific indicators for monitoring and evaluation, and ensuring that the means are in place to deliver these investments quickly. For children and youth, continuity of safe and inclusive education is an essential component of our humanitarian response and resilience-building efforts to both sudden-onset or slow-onset events. The long-term resilience of education systems, as well as the responsiveness of interventions to address loss and damage, can make all the difference to successful recovery.
Furthermore, children and youth from across the globe – especially crisis-affected countries that are highly vulnerable to climate impacts – must be meaningfully engaged in establishing policies and procedures for the new fund through consultative forums and other relevant mechanisms.
As countries update their Nationally Determined Contributions ahead of COP30 in Brazil, it is critical that education is appropriately reflected among national priorities to access climate financing, and that ECW and its partners are enabled to provide life-saving education services for children and adolescents impacted by the intersecting crises of climate change, conflict and displacement.
Our investment in education today is an investment in a low-carbon, climate-resilient future. It’s our investment in the vast potential of the human race.
* Petra Heusser Executive Director Petra Heusser has worked for the past 17 years in the international humanitarian field for the protection and education of children, refugees and migrants. Since its establishment in late 2020, Petra heads the Geneva Global Hub for Education in Emergencies Secretariat and strategically steers collective objectives. Petra worked previously for the UNICEF-led Global Child Protection Area of Responsibility and has extensive field experience spanning Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia, collaborating with Governments, UN agencies and civil society organisations.
