Education and Environment

This document provides 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.

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.

What are the impacts of climate crisis and climate displacement on education?
What can countries do to improve the preparedness and resilience to protect the right to education ?
Watch this Side Event at the 79th Commission Session of UN ESCAP jointly organized by UNESCO Bangkok and UN University - Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability at United Nations ESCAP on 17 May 2023. 

This report aims to examine the barriers to education as a result of climate change and climate displacement, taking into account the policy implications of heightened human mobility. The comparative analysis contained is based on research undertaken in four regions around the globe (Central America and the Caribbean, Asia-Pacific, South-Eastern Europe and East Africa). The key conclusion of the analysis is that climate change poses direct and indirect threats to the fulfillment of SDG 4 and the right to education in all four regions studied.

In this general comment, the Committee on the Rights of the Child emphasizes the urgent need to address the adverse effects of environmental degradation, with a special focus on climate change, on the enjoyment of children’s rights, and clarifies the obligations of States to address environmental harm and climate change. The Committee also explains how children’s rights under the Convention on the Rights of the Child apply to environmental protection, and confirms that children have a right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.