The climate-education nexus and financing: A primer for advocates

This publication draws upon research conducted by SEEK for Dubai Cares’ report on the Climate-Education nexus, and for the GPE.

Dubai Cares is a civil society organization working towards providing children and young people in low- and middle-income countries with access to quality education. At COP28, Dubai Cares organized the Rewired Summit to convene actors in climate and education to place education at the forefront of the climate agenda.

GPE is a global fund and a multi-stakeholder partnership focused on providing quality education to children in lower-income countries. GPE is also helping its partner countries ensure that their education systems are climate-smart and prepared to advance climate action, resilience, and equality.

What is the climate-education nexus?

With COP29 having just commenced in Azerbaijan, climate change is on the radar of development practitioners and advocates alike. With mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage high on the agenda, it is critical to remember the intersection of climate change with other development imperatives. One such intersection is the climate-education nexus, where climate change and education interact with each other. This intersection not only captures the disruptive effects of climate change on educational systems but also underscores how education can play a definitive role in mitigating and adapting to these impacts.

Although the effects of climate change are well known, education is a key sector where its impacts are still being explored. Rising temperatures and extreme weather events induced by climate change are damaging education infrastructure, displacing families, and disrupting learning, particularly in vulnerable areas. Over 400 million students have faced school closures since 2022, creating lasting setbacks that hinder the return of children to schools. As the climate crisis worsens, learners are at high risk of losing access to education while simultaneously needing to adapt to the climate crisis.

Education’s role in this landscape is both reactive and proactive. On one hand, education is a victim of the devastating effects of climate change; on the other, it is a potent tool for driving climate action. By equipping learners with essential climate knowledge, awareness, and values, education empowers individuals to address the causes and impacts of climate change. It can bridge the skills gaps needed to build a climate-resilient future by contributing to both mitigation and adaptation objectives.

Despite the significance of the nexus, it does not yet feature strongly on agendas in national and international policy spaces and remains a nascent space in which donors are still finding their orientation towards impactful goals and action. However, as advocates push to transform education and climate action, this nexus warrants focused attention to explore well-rounded solutions that leverage synergies in actions and intentions.

The climate-education nexus: why is it relevant now?

The climate-education nexus is gaining increasing recognition in the international policy space. Initially, a siloed approach was taken to tackling the impacts of climate change on education, and education’s role in addressing climate change. With the climate crisis becoming more urgent, there is now increasing awareness of the synergies between these purportedly separate domains of action.

Much of the evolution in the recognition of this nexus has taken place in the last 30 years. Some key milestones that have marked the pathway of this evolution are:

• The Rio Summit (1992) and Agenda 21 which recognized the importance of reorienting education towards sustainable development;
• UNFCCC (1992) which recognized the need to promote education in the context of climate change;
• UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014) which promoted the integration of sustainability into education;
• SDGs (2015) which linked SDG #13 and SDG #4 to foster climate awareness; and
• The Paris Agreement (2015) which renewed the emphasis on climate literacy and education.

Thirty years after the Rio Summit, the first ever Transforming Education Summit in 2022 called for action to make every learner climate-ready. A year later, COP28 became the first COP to host an education day, marking a watershed moment for the nexus. COP28 also witnessed the Green Climate Fund, GPE, and Save the Children launching a US$70 million investment to build climate-resilient schools in vulnerable countries. COP29 is continuing this practice by dedicating a thematic day to education, children, and youth. Given the increasing focus on this nexus in the international arena, and growing conversations on financing, it is critical for advocates to understand the trends and to sustain the momentum of discussions while bringing in-depth and evidence-based demands to stakeholders and actors in the education and climate sectors.

Key donors and finance flows in the nexus

As dialogue, ambition, and action grow at the forefront of the climate-education nexus, it is important for advocates to understand the financing trends at the nexus. Key donors mapped in the nexus include donor governments, foundations, and the private sector.

Donor governments: Donor governments, such as those from the EU, the US, and Canada, are increasingly involved in the climate and education nexus by providing targeted funding and support for projects that address both climate resilience and educational development. These governments typically contribute through bilateral assistance development programs, and international partnerships.

While looking at ODA from DAC donors towards education tagged with Rio markers for climate change mitigation and/or adaptation, trends reveal that on average, DAC donors disbursed close to US$406 million per year from 2018-2022, focused on activities at the nexus of climate and education. Based on OECD data from 2022, DAC donors typically focused on vocational training, higher education, and educational facilities and training, whereas early childhood education and school nutrition ranked low in priority. The financing trends for DAC donors (2018-2022) and DAC donors’ spending focused on the intersection of education and climate change (2022) are captured below.

Although ODA focused on the nexus increased in 2019 and 2020 compared to 2018, the financing trends reveal a cumulative decrease of US$100 million in both grant and loan disbursements in 2021, compared to 2020. This is on account of significant decreases in disbursements from major donors to the nexus, including Australia, EUI, Canada, Japan, and the UK due to COVID-19 spending. The analysis of funding flows also revealed that LMICs received only 44% of the disbursements from DAC donors in 2022, although they are the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change and have the greatest funding needs. The spending of DAC donor countries by income groups (2022) is captured below.

Foundations: Foundations focusing on the climate-education nexus generally tackle the issue from a community welfare perspective, concentrating on protecting vulnerable communities, developing climate-resilient infrastructure, and promoting sustainable practices. Their focus often targets LMICs and marginalized groups who are disproportionately affected by climate change. Recent trends suggest that foundations are increasingly focusing on integrating climate literacy into educational curricula and investing in climate-resilient infrastructure, reflecting a promising trend toward blending education and climate action. However, challenges remain, including the limited reach of current initiatives and difficulties in scaling successful projects.

Corporations: Private corporations focusing on activities in the nexus, such as the Bank of America, Microsoft, or Walmart, generally direct their climate funding towards activities targeting climate mitigation. These activities are typically aligned more with business interests and oriented towards the development of climate technology, net-zero solutions, and providing training and skilling opportunities for workforce development. When private corporations engage with climate and education, it is mostly through CSR initiatives that also further their business interests. However, some businesses are increasingly recognizing the interconnectedness between climate action and education. For instance, Microsoft’s AI for Earth Program not only supports climate-focused projects but also provides educational resources to researchers and students using AI for environmental solutions. While these efforts show a growing awareness of how climate and education are linked, they remain relatively limited in scale, often targeting specific objectives rather than systemic change.

The current funding landscape reveals a visible divergence in the prioritization of nexus issues among donors. For example, while foundations approach the nexus from a community welfare perspective, corporations approach it from a profit-oriented lens. Funding towards some activities such as education curricula or workforce training comes at the expense of other equally critical issues, such as early childhood development and capacity building for educators. Trends also underscore the need for a deeper understanding of the financing needs at the nexus so that donor priorities can be aligned to match the scope and volume of needs. This way, financial flows could be directed where they would be most relevant.

What are the next steps for advocates?

Invest in research and analysis to deepen understanding of the nexus:

For advocates to demand meaningful action at the nexus, it is crucial to understand global needs and landscape sub-issues, gaps, and opportunities. In particular, financing needs in this space are not clearly quantified, making it difficult to assess whether financing flows are adequate. Investing in a nuanced understanding of nexus issues, financing needs and flows will also allow advocates to demand tailored actions from actors and stakeholders.

Elevate nexus issues within broader climate and education policies and policy spaces:

While the climate-education nexus is increasingly receiving attention in international fora, it is important to continue to advocate for continued inclusion of the nexus in international agendas. Advocates should build capacity to actively engage with agendas of key international events to inform discussions in such spaces and put forth evidence-based demands for actions. This could include advocating for education day to be a permanent fixture in upcoming COPs, and demanding inclusion of the nexus in discussions at key meetings such as G7 and G20 meetings.

Simultaneously, it is critical to ensure that nexus issues are integrated and embedded in policy goals and frameworks at both the national and international levels. This would require advocates to enhance engagement with decision-makers in both education and climate policy spaces to ensure the integration of these spaces over the proliferation of siloed approaches. These policy goals will have to be complemented by tracking mechanisms to measure progress within the nexus.

Advocate for increased financing and alignment between financial flows and needs in the nexus:

While funding focused on the nexus is evolving, advocates need to ensure that the nexus is elevated as an issue to attract investments from a larger and more diversified set of donors. There is a need for existing champions to increase, and if not, to maintain funding flows to the nexus, while previous champions who have reduced financial flows (i.e. EUI and the UK) should be encouraged to return to their highest levels of funding. Donors also need to integrate education into existing climate work and ensure that financial flows match the needs at the nexus. For example, there is a need for increasing financial flows to LMICs, who are the most vulnerable to climate change. This requires advocates to create deliverables on financial flows and priorities through engagement with existing and new donors which are based on an assessment of needs within the nexus.

Advocate for the creation of dedicated platforms for cross-collaboration in the nexus:

Intersectoral action from stakeholders based on meaningful collaboration is needed to drive solutions in the nexus. These solutions would have to be underpinned by integrated strategies and platforms for regular dialogue, engagement, and sharing of best practices. Advocates should create deliverables through coordination and collaboration platforms among actors from both climate and education circles to ensure convergence in the nexus, as opposed to fragmented solutions and approaches.

These dedicated platforms should also facilitate broader stakeholder engagement with CSO groups in climate advocacy and educators from the education sector. The representation of diverse voices will create avenues for meaningful dialogue and better inform action at the nexus.