Publication: Choosing Our Future: Education for Climate Action
Loading...
Other Files
366 downloads
9 downloads
490 downloads
Date
2024-09-04
ISSN
Published
2024-09-04
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Education can propel faster and better climate action in two crucial ways. First, education can galvanize behavior change at scale - not just for tomorrow, but also for today. Second, education can unlock skills and innovation to shift economies onto greener trajectories for growth.
At the same time, education needs to be protected from climate change. Extreme climate events and temperatures are already eroding hard-won progress on schooling and learning. Climate change is causing school closures, learning losses, and dropouts. These will turn into long-run inter-generational earnings losses putting into jeopardy education’s powerful potential for spurring poverty alleviation and economic growth. Governments can act now to adapt schools for climate change in cost-effective ways.
This report outlines new data, evidence, and examples on how countries can harness education to propel climate action. It provides an actionable policy agenda to meet development, education, and climate goals together, recognizing that tackling climate change requires changes to individual beliefs, behaviors, and skills – changes that education is uniquely positioned to catalyze.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Sabarwal, Shwetlena; Venegas Marin, Sergio; Spivack, Marla; Ambasz, Diego. 2024. Choosing Our Future: Education for Climate Action. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/42098 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Impacts of Extreme Weather Events on Education Outcomes(Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the World Bank, 2024-04-08)Extreme weather events are increasingly disrupting schooling. Yet, these are underrepresented in the climate change literature. Of 15 review articles on the economic impacts of climate change published since 2010, only three mention the impacts of climate change on education. We review available literature on the effects of weather extremes on education. We outline key pathways through which these events impact education outcomes, as well as the magnitude of those impacts. Evidence implies a significant and adverse relationship between heat and learning. Studies suggest surpassing a high temperature threshold makes learning difficult and results in learning losses. Across studies, each additional day subject to extreme heat reduces learning. Tropical cyclones, floods, and wildfires precipitate school closures, which halt learning. Evidence suggests that one day of school closures leads to one day of learning lost. Weather extremes also negatively impact education outcomes through health, nutrition, poverty, and fragility, among other distal pathways. We discuss the implications of this evidence for policy, including the need to adapt education systems to climate change. Mitigation and adaptation are both urgently needed as extreme weather events become more frequent and severe in the context of climate change.Publication The Impact of Climate Change on Education and What to Do about It(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-05-02)Education can be the key to ending poverty in 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.Publication A Review of Human Development and Environmental Outcomes(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-05-11)As climate change and its impact on the physical environment become increasingly evident, its relationship with human development outcomes is becoming a key area of research. While numerous researchers have studied the ways in which the immediate environment affects human capital, literature on the impact of human capital on the environment remains scarce. Despite the heightened interest in understanding the linkages between human development outcomes and environmental factors, most studies of this relationship are theoretical, correlational, or observational, thus lacking causality. This paper surveys the literature and explores how evidence can be established for policies focusing on human development and environmental outcomes. The paper presents a conceptual framework incorporating direct and indirect pathways – including cognitive and noncognitive factors through which improved education can lead to better environmental behaviors. Of the 31 studies reviewed, a majority (27 studies) present observational findings, while only a few (four studies, or 13 percent) use a quasi-experimental design to establish causality. The few causal studies suggest that it is possible to change attitudes but more difficult to change environmental behaviors. The review raises the key question of whether policies aimed at improving climate change awareness through education can effectively produce long-lasting changes in pro-environmental behaviors. Much more work is needed to advance understanding of how human capital policy can help mitigate or promote adaptation to climate change.Publication Steering the Human Development Strategy for a Sustainable Green Economy in the Slovak Republic(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2023-05-17)The rippling effects of multiple overlapping crises on the economy, declining education outcomes, and inability of the education system to meet the upcoming needs of the labor market puts the Slovak Republic in a human capital crisis. There is a misalignment between the supply and outcomes of the education system and requirements of the labor market. Education-to-work pathways through vocational and tertiary education are insufficient to prepare students for the green economy transition. Education-to-work pathways need to be flexible to align worker choices with needs of the labor market. This policy note provides a deep dive into the education situation in the Slovak Republic and proposes specific policy recommendations aiming at the skilling and reskilling toward the green and digital agenda, utilizing European and international experiences in this area.Publication Making the European Green Deal Work for People(Washington, DC: World Bank Group, 2023-04-24)Climate change is the single most important existential threat of our times. Mounting average global temperature contributes to rising sea levels, more frequent extreme weather events, deteriorating biodiversity, and shifts in the sustainability of agriculture and aquaculture. The European Green Deal (EGD) is the response of the European Union (EU) to the climate challenge. It will establish regulations and incentives to nudge European society toward a more sustainable economy. To achieve these ambitious goals the EGD combines a wide range of regulations, policies, and intervention. But a green transition is only possible with an enabling human transition, and only with the proper human development (social) policies to support this transition. This report identifies the human development (HD) policies needed to enable the green transition in Europe.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Empowerment in Practice : From Analysis to Implementation(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2006)This book represents an effort to present an easily accessible framework to readers, especially those for whom empowerment remains a puzzling development concern, conceptually and in application. The book is divided into two parts. Part 1 explains how the empowerment framework can be used for understanding, measuring, monitoring, and operationalizing empowerment policy and practice. Part 2 presents summaries of each of the five country studies, using them to discuss how the empowerment framework can be applied in very different country and sector contexts and what lessons can be learned from these test cases. While this book can offer only a limited empirical basis for the positive association between empowerment and development outcomes, it does add to the body of work supporting the existence of such a relationship. Perhaps more importantly, it also provides a framework for future research to test the association and to prioritize practical interventions seeking to empower individuals and groups.Publication Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2022(Washington, DC : World Bank, 2022)Poverty and Shared Prosperity 2022: Correcting Course provides the first comprehensive analysis of the pandemic’s toll on poverty in developing countries. It identifies how governments can optimize fiscal policy to help correct course. Fiscal policies offset the impact of COVID-19 on poverty in many high-income countries, but those policies offset barely one quarter of the pandemic’s impact in low-income countries and lower-middle-income countries. Improving support to households as crises continue will require reorienting protective spending away from generally regressive and inefficient subsidies and toward a direct transfer support system—a first key priority. Reorienting fiscal spending toward supporting growth is a second key priority identified by the report. Some of the highest-value public spending often pays out decades later. Amid crises, it is difficult to protect such investments, but it is essential to do so. Finally, it is not enough just to spend wisely - when additional revenue does need to be mobilized, it must be done in a way that minimizes reductions in poor people’s incomes. The report highlights how exploring underused forms of progressive taxation and increasing the efficiency of tax collection can help in this regard. Poverty and Shared Prosperity is a biennial series that reports on global trends in poverty and shared prosperity. Each report also explores a central challenge to poverty reduction and boosting shared prosperity, assessing what works well and what does not in different settings. By bringing together the latest evidence, this corporate flagship report provides a foundation for informed advocacy around ending extreme poverty and improving the lives of the poorest in every country in the world. For more information, please visit worldbank.org/poverty-and-shared-prosperity.Publication World Development Report 2004(World Bank, 2003)Too often, services fail poor people in access, in quality, and in affordability. But the fact that there are striking examples where basic services such as water, sanitation, health, education, and electricity do work for poor people means that governments and citizens can do a better job of providing them. Learning from success and understanding the sources of failure, this year’s World Development Report, argues that services can be improved by putting poor people at the center of service provision. How? By enabling the poor to monitor and discipline service providers, by amplifying their voice in policymaking, and by strengthening the incentives for providers to serve the poor. Freedom from illness and freedom from illiteracy are two of the most important ways poor people can escape from poverty. To achieve these goals, economic growth and financial resources are of course necessary, but they are not enough. The World Development Report provides a practical framework for making the services that contribute to human development work for poor people. With this framework, citizens, governments, and donors can take action and accelerate progress toward the common objective of poverty reduction, as specified in the Millennium Development Goals.Publication Finance and Prosperity 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-08-29)While financial sector risks in the larger and higher per capita countries are moderate, half of lower-income countries face significant risks over the next 12 months. Nearly 70 percent of countries facing high financial sector risks are currently not adequately prepared to handle financial stress. The report also identifies a particular risk facing financial sectors in several countries: a large and growing exposure to sovereign debt. This exposure surged to its highest level in the past decade. Finally, the report looks at how countries can enable more climate finance through the banking sector without compromising on the important goals of financial sector stability and inclusion for underserved people.Publication Impact Evaluation in Practice, First Edition(World Bank, 2011)The Impact Evaluation in Practice handbook is a comprehensive and accessible introduction to impact evaluation for policymakers and development practitioners. The book incorporates real-world examples to present practical guidelines for designing and implementing evaluations. Readers will gain an understanding of the uses of impact evaluation and the best ways to use evaluations to design policies and programs that are based on evidence of what works most effectively. The handbook is divided into three sections: Part One discusses what to evaluate and why; Part Two outlines the theoretical underpinnings of impact evaluation; and Part Three examines how to implement an evaluation. Case studies illustrate different methods for carrying out impact evaluations.