Education and Environment

Environmental disasters often result in the destruction of infrastructure and learning materials, compromising education availability. In many emergencies, schools are diverted from their original function and used as shelters or care facilities, delaying their return to service as educational facilities. Similarly, roads leading to schools can be damaged, making access to schools difficult and further isolating the most rural populations. 

In addition, the majority of school structures are not adapted to the new climatic realities; they are not resistant to bad weather such as heavy rains or floods, lack ventilation and are sometimes built on precarious foundations, making teaching and learning extremely difficult in these conditions.

In its General Comment No. 26 on Children’s Rights and the Environment with a Special Focus on Climate Change, the Committee on the Rights provides guidance to address these issues:

• ‘States should build safe, healthy and resilient infrastructure for effective learning. This includes ensuring the availability of pedestrian and biking routes and public transportation to school and that schools and alternative learning facilities are located at safe distances from sources of pollution, flooding, landslides and other environmental hazards, including contaminated sites, and the construction of buildings and classrooms with adequate heating and cooling and access to sufficient, safe and acceptable drinking water and sanitation facilities. Environmentally friendly school facilities, such as those with lighting and heating sourced from renewable energy and edible gardens, can benefit children and ensure compliance by States with their environmental obligations.’ (Para. 55)

• ‘During and after water scarcity, sandstorms, heatwaves and other severe weather events, States should ensure physical access to schools, especially for children in remote or rural communities, or consider alternative teaching methods, such as mobile educational facilities and distance learning. Underserved communities should be prioritized for the climate-proofing and renovation of schools. States should ensure alternative housing for displaced populations as soon as possible to ensure that schools are not used as shelters. When responding to emergencies caused by severe weather events in areas already affected by armed conflict, States should ensure that schools do not become targets for armed groups’ activity.’ (Para. 56)

Forced displacement and barriers to access education, and in good conditions

‘The increasing number of people displaced due to climate change faces unique vulnerabilities, especially in terms of access to education’ reports UNESCO. Even more because in these geographical areas, where environmental degradation is marked or imminent (due to rising sea levels or erosion, extreme temperature variations, land subsidence, etc.), the population is often poor and already in a vulnerable situation. 

The uncertain legal situation of so-called ‘climate-displaced people’ can be a limit to their access to education. Forced to flee, sometimes without official papers, these people often find it impossible to obtain a new legal status. (UNESCO, 2024) By becoming irregular displaced persons, they exclude themselves from educational structures, for fear of being spotted and reported to the authorities (UNESCO, 2020). 

Displaced children are particularly vulnerable to the consequences of climate change, which have a profound impact on their learning :

• During displacement, children have no access to school facilities, which can lead to an interruption in their schooling for several years (UNESCO, 2020)

• Their increased sensitivity to pollution toxins, infectious diseases and malnutrition (due to the reduced quality and accessibility of food) permanently weakens their physiology and cognitive abilities. This can make them unfit for school or slow down their learning cycle. (World Bank Group, 2024)

• Forced displacement, arrival in a different education system and any deterioration in the behaviour of their parents or legal guardians (rendered powerless or violent by the situation) can lead to deep-seated trauma in the child. As social and psychological support for children displaced by the climate is underdeveloped, this encourages them to drop out of school. (UNESCO, 2020)

• Children from these displaced families are more likely to be removed from the school system by their parents so that they can work and provide extra income. (UNICEF, 2021)

Exacerbation of existing inequalities 

Climate change exacerbates existing inequalities, disproportionately affecting vulnerable populations who already face systemic barriers to accessing quality education.

• Girls, under financial pressure, are the first children to be withdrawn from the education system, favouring the education of boys. They may therefore be sold, married off by force or restricted to manual labour. In other words, their education is considered to be of lesser importance, and they also have less access to information in general. 
• Indigenous populations affected by climatic disasters may have great difficulty finding an education system that respects their cultural heritage. Similarly, their traditional cultures and practices become more precarious over time, with intergenerational transmission becoming increasingly difficult as populations move. However, their ancestral knowledge is considered to be of major importance in understanding the phenomenon of climate change and can ‘contribute to equitable and sustainable development and proper management of environmental resources’, according to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
• People living with disabilities have specific needs that are rarely taken into account in the policies and facilities put in place in relation to climate change. Similarly, temperature variations and extreme weather phenomena can naturally increase the fragility of their immune systems. As a result, people with disabilities find it very difficult to get into a school adapted to their needs - all the more so in the regions most affected by climate change or when they are forced to move. When people with disabilities are excluded from the education system, they are also excluded from society as a whole.

See this working paper on Education Policy (UNESCO, 2020) for more details 

The Committee on the Rights of the Child provides particular guidance on these issues in its General Comment No. 26 on Children’s Rights and the Environment with a Special Focus on Climate Change:

• ‘States should recognize and address the disproportionate indirect and knock-on effects of environmental degradation on children’s education, paying special attention to gender-specific situations, such as children leaving school due to additional domestic and economic burdens in households facing environment-related shocks and stress’. (Para. 57)

• ‘Indigenous children are disproportionately affected by biodiversity loss, pollution and climate change. States should closely consider the impact of environmental harm, such as deforestation, on traditional land and culture and the quality of the natural environment, while ensuring the rights to life, survival and development of Indigenous children. States must undertake measures to meaningfully engage with Indigenous children and their families in responding to environmental harm, including harm caused by climate change, taking due account of and integrating concepts from Indigenous cultures and traditional knowledge in mitigation and adaptation measures. While children in Indigenous communities face unique risks, they can also act as educators and advocates in applying traditional knowledge to reduce the impact of local hazards and strengthen resilience, if this knowledge is passed on and supported. Comparable measures should be taken regarding the rights of children belonging to non-Indigenous minority groups whose rights, way of life and cultural identity are intimately related to nature’. (Para. 58)

Article 29.1(e) of the Convention of the Rights of the Child states that ‘the education of the child shall be directed to: the development of respect for the natural environment.’ The Committee on the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights stresses that ‘education has a vital role (...) in protecting the environment’ (General Comment 13 on the Right to Education, para. 13). In its General Comment No. 26 on Children’s Rights and the Environment with a Special Focus on Climate Change, the Committee on the Rights of the Child explicits this dimension highlighting:

• ‘Education is one of the cornerstones of a child rights-based approach to the environment. Children have highlighted that education is instrumental in protecting their rights and the environment and in increasing their awareness and preparedness for environmental damage’ (Para. 51)

• ‘Article 29 (1) (e) of the Convention, requiring that the education of a child be directed to the development of respect for the natural environment, should be read in conjunction with article 28, to ensure that every child has the right to receive an education that reflects environmental values.’ (Para. 52)

• ‘A rights-based environmental education should be transformative, inclusive, child-centred, child-friendly and empowering. It should pursue the development of the child’s personality, talents and abilities, acknowledge the close interrelationship between respect for the natural environment and other ethical values enshrined in article 29 (1) of the Convention and have both a local and global orientation. School curricula should be tailored to children’s specific environmental, social, economic and cultural contexts and promote understanding of the contexts of other children affected by environmental degradation. Teaching materials should provide scientifically accurate, up-to-date and developmentally and age-appropriate environmental information. All children should be equipped with the skills necessary to face expected environmental challenges in life, such as disaster risks and environment-related health impacts, including the ability to critically reflect upon such challenges, solve problems, make well-balanced decisions and assume environmental responsibility, such as through sustainable lifestyles and consumption, in accordance with their evolving capacities’. (Para. 53)

The world's young people play an essential role in raising awareness of climate change and its impacts, and are at the forefront of change. Fridays for Future, also known as School Strike for Climate, an international movement of school students who skip Friday classes to participate in demonstrations to demand action from political leaders to prevent climate change, is illustrative of their mobilisation.

Their demand for their voices to be heard and taken into account in climate-related decision-making and political processes - at all levels - is therefore pressing. Several major documents bear witness to this call, such as the Youth Statement on Quality Climate Education (2023), he Global Youth Declaration on Environment (2024) and the Youth Manifesto for Action on Climate Change (2021). 

These texts highlight the urgent need for a profound and fundamental transformation of current education systems, which teach too little or poorly about the origins and effects of climate change, as well as possible approaches to reducing or tackling it.  In particular, this would require comprehensive and universal education on the climate issue, as well as the inclusion of justice (climate and social) and fundamental human rights as being at the heart of possible solutions. 

World Youth is also calling for adequate investment and funding to enable the reconstruction of school structures that are resistant to climate hazards - depending on the region of the world - as well as the provision of appropriate training for teachers.

Lastly, it calls for the various knowledge systems to be valued and integrated into the overhaul of education systems, with particular emphasis on and recognition of the knowledge and practices of indigenous and local communities, especially their role as guardians of the environment.

The Committee on the Rights of the Child  stresses that ‘States should ensure the collection of reliable, regularly updated and disaggregated data and research on environmental harm, including the risks and actual impacts of climate change-related harm on children’s rights. They should include longitudinal data on the effects of environmental harm on children’s rights, in particular on (...) education (...). Such data and research should inform the formulation and evaluation of environmental legislation, policies, programmes and plans at all levels and must be made publicly available.’  (General Comment No. 26 on Children’s Rights and the Environment with a Special Focus on Climate Change, para. 74)

Hereafter is an overview of the provisions of the international human rights framework linking the right to education with issues related to the environment and climate change.

The international legal framework listed below encompasses treaties, which create binding obligations to States, and other sources of ‘soft law’ that are not binding, such as declarations and resolutions, frameworks for action, interpretations of the treaties by UN treaty bodies and UN Special procedures (through general comments and recommendations) or human rights guiding principles. Those non-binding instruments are significant for various reasons - for example, a non-binding instrument may constitute authoritative interpretation which provides guidance to states regarding implementation of a binding instrument; indicate evolving practices or emerging consensus on particular issues; and/or they be subject to structured follow up and review processes which provide space for dialogue about rights in practice. For details, see International instruments - Environment, Climate change and the right to education.

Binding instruments

Note: The General Comments added under each treaty and convention listed below are not binding instruments. Issued by the UN treaty Body in charge of monitoring the implementation of the treaty or the convention, they provide an interpretation of their provisions and guide States’ implementation.  

• United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 1992 (Article 4(1)(i), Article 6(a)(i)(iii), Article 6(b)) 
•  Paris Agreement, 2015 (Articles 11 and 12) 
• International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, 1966 (Article 13,  General Comment No. 13 : The right to Education)
• Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989 (Article 24.1, Article 24.2(c)(e)(f), Article 28 and Article 29.1(e)), General Comment No. 26 : on children’s rights and the environment with a special focus on climate change)                                 

Non-binding instruments

• UN Human Rights Council Resolutions

Resolution 47/6. The right to education (July 2021); 

Resolution 52/22. Human rights, democracy and the rule of law (April 2023); 

Resolution 53/7. The right to education (July 2023); 

Resolution 54/7. World Programme for Human Rights Education (October 2023)

• Sustainable Development Goals, 2015 

SDG 4, Target 4.7 

SDG 13, Target 13.3 

• Education 2030: Incheon Declaration and Framework for Action for the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 4, 2015 (Sections 4, 26, 63)
• Transforming Education Summit, Education in Crisis Situations: A Call to Action, 2022 (Sections 14, 17, 18(d), 19(k), 24(d), 24(g), 24(l), 24(m), 25(f), 30(j), 33(c), 36(a)(ii), 48(c))
• Berlin Declaration on Education for Sustainable Development; Learn for our planet: act for sustainability, 2022 (Sections 2, 3, 4, 6.a, 6.e, 6.g)
• UN Declaration on the Common Agenda for Education and Climate Change at COP28, 2023 
• Baku Guiding Principles on Human Development for Climate Resilience, 2024 
• (Principle 1, Principle 3, Principle 4, Principle 9, Principle 10, Principle 11)
• UNESCO Declaration of Ethical Principles in relation to Climate Change, 2017 (Preamble, Article 11)
• Framework Principles on Human Rights and the Environment, 2018 (Principle 6)
• UN Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Education 2015-2030, 2015 (Sections 14, 17, 18(d), 19(k), 24(d), 24(g), 24(l), 24(m), 25(f), 30(j), 33(c), 36(a)(ii), 48(c))
• Comprehensive School Safety Framework for Child Rights and Resilience in the Education Sector, 2022-2030

Our work on this issue is nascent. We seek to influence legal and policy frameworks in response to the connection between, environment, climate change and the right to education, both in terms of impact and solutions.

Ultimately, what we want to see is the right to education protected, implemented and enforced for those impacted by climate change, particularly the most marginalised groups, including through the adoption of laws and policies aiming to ensure the continuity of education in the event of school closures and/or climate displacement, and to address inequalities due to the impact of climate change on the right to education. 

We want to see education systems reducing their impacts on climate change and addressing climate change in their curriculum in compliance with human rights, including through the adoption of laws and policies.

We are currently collaborating with the Global Campus of Human Rights in facilitating an online training on climate change and the right to education for young people across the world.