In an accompanying blog we argue that girls’ education is unlikely to reduce future emissions, and that we should not think of girls in low-income countries as ‘assets’ to solve a climate crisis. But there is a link between education and climate change—it’s just the other way around. Children’s and young people’s perspectives are largely missing from the international discussion on education-climate links. We draw on qualitative findings from Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE), the largest global study on adolescence, following 18,000 girls and boys in six countries. In a 2020 study, GAGE teams in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Jordan conducted interviews with 788 adolescent girls and boys to understand the ways in which their lives are affected by a changing climate. Here are five ways in which climate events are negatively impacting young people, especially girls, and how education systems can help tackle them.
Five Ways That Education Systems Can Support Girls in the Face of Climate Change, Today
