Climate Change and Education

• Climate Change Education
  Climate change education is a multidisciplinary approach to understanding and addressing the causes and impacts of climate change. It aims to foster the knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes needed for individuals and societies to become “change agents” who can promote climate adaptation and mitigation through sustainable and resilient development. It involves teaching the science of climate change, while also emphasising practical solutions and empowerment to encourage sustainable lifestyles and behaviour change.
• Climate Literacy
  Climate literacy is the ability to understand how the Earth’s climate system works, how human activities affect it, and how to make informed decisions and act in response to climate change. It involves understanding climate science, evaluating climate information from different sources, and communicating effectively about climate issues in order to contribute to solutions.
• Curriculum Integration
  Curriculum integration involves embedding climate-related themes across subjects such as science, social studies, geography, and the arts, enabling students to understand how climate change affects all aspects of modern life.
• Education in Emergencies
  The provision of quality learning during crises, including those driven or exacerbated by climate change, such as droughts and flooding. Education in emergencies focuses on ensuring learning continuity despite disruptions.
• Greening Schools / Green School Operations
  This refers to efforts to reduce schools’ environmental footprints. These can include installing solar power, designing buildings according to sustainable principles, improving energy efficiency, and composting food waste.
• Learning Continuity Plans
  Preparedness measures designed to keep students learning during climate-related disruptions. These can include remote learning options and flexible academic calendars when schools are forced to close due to damage from extreme weather events such as cyclones.
• Risk-Informed Education Planning
  The use of data – such as hazard maps and climate projections – to plan schools, infrastructure, and curricula that anticipate and adapt to climate-related disruptions.
• Safe School Infrastructure
  The design of buildings and systems that can withstand climate hazards and ensure learning continuity. This may include measures such as natural ventilation to reduce the effects of extreme heat, reinforced roofs to withstand cyclones, and improved drainage to prevent flooding.
• Transformative Climate Education
  A form of education that goes beyond raising awareness. It aims to change mindsets, foster critical thinking, empower learners, and encourage collective action for systemic change in how societies respond to climate challenges.
• WASH in Schools
  Water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) systems are essential for health and resilience in climate-impacted contexts. Measures can include reviewing and adapting the location or design of water points or latrines to make them flood- or cyclone-proof; upgrading technologies such as deeper boreholes; and promoting renewable energy solutions instead of diesel-powered systems.

General Climate Change

• Adaptation
  Climate adaptation involves managing the impacts of climate change that are already occurring or unavoidable. This can include actions ranging from planting drought-resistant crops to building flood defences. Developing countries, which are often the most affected by climate change, need to invest in adaptation measures to protect their populations, economies, and ecosystems from current and future climate risks.
• Climate Services
  Climate services provide climate information tailored to users’ needs to support decision-making. Examples include seasonal forecasts for farmers and early warning systems that help determine which crops to plant and when. 
• Climate Hazards 
  Climate hazards are potentially harmful physical events or trends, whether natural or human-induced, such as heatwaves, droughts, or storms, that can cause damage to people, infrastructure, or ecosystems. 
• Climate Vulnerability 
  Climate vulnerability refers to the propensity or predisposition of a system to be adversely affected by climate change. In IPCC terms, vulnerability is often described as a function of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. Effective climate action reduces vulnerability and increases resilience. 
• Climate Resilience 
  Climate resilience is the capacity of social, economic, and environmental systems to absorb disturbances – such as climate shocks – reorganise, and retain their essential structure and function, while learning and transforming over time.
• Early Warning Systems
  Tools that detect and communicate climate hazards in time for people to act. These can be high-tech, such as satellite data sent to fishers’ phones warning of impending storms, or low-tech, such as community noticeboards in Inuit communities highlighting areas of thin ice along fishing routes.
• Loss and Damage
  Loss and damage refers to the harm caused by climate change that goes beyond what people can adapt to – when adaptation limits are exceeded and climate impacts can no longer be avoided or managed. It includes economic losses, such as the destruction of homes and infrastructure, and non-economic losses, such as the loss of cultural heritage or ecosystems.
• Maladaptation
  Maladaptation refers to adaptation actions intended to reduce climate risk that unintentionally increase vulnerability or cause harm elsewhere. For example, building a sea wall to protect coastal properties may disrupt natural sediment flows and cause erosion in neighbouring areas.
• Mitigation
  Climate mitigation addresses the root causes of climate change, primarily by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Mitigation efforts also include transitioning to renewable energy, improving energy efficiency, and changing land-use practices such as deforestation.
• Nature-Based Solutions
  Nature-based solutions (NbS) are actions that work with nature to address societal challenges such as climate risks. They aim to deliver environmental, social, and economic benefits simultaneously, including improving water quality, managing flood risk, moderating urban heat, and creating resilient habitats. Examples include rewetting peatlands, installing green roofs, and planting trees in cities.
• Transformative Adaptation
  Transformative adaptation involves changes that fundamentally shift systems—including institutions, behaviours, and economies—to thrive under climate change. For example, transitioning from rice monocultures to agroforestry systems in regions facing reduced rainfall by combining drought-resistant crops with trees. This approach creates more resilient livelihoods and can help restore forest cover.

Climate Finance

• Climate Finance 
  Climate finance refers to funding used to tackle climate change. It can take many forms, including grants, donations, concessional loans, debt swaps, and guarantees. Climate finance is essential because, without it, developing countries – which have contributed the least to climate change – will be unable to transition to low-carbon economies or adapt to climate impacts such as droughts and floods. 
• Concessional Loans 
  Loans provided to countries on more favourable terms than market rates, such as lower interest rates or longer repayment periods. 
• The Adaptation Fund 
  The Adaptation Fund was established in 2001 to finance concrete adaptation projects and programmes in developing countries that are Parties to the Kyoto Protocol. 
• Global Environment Facility  
  The Global Environment Facility (GEF) is a partnership of 18 agencies – including United Nations agencies, multilateral development banks, national entities, and international NGOs – working with 183 countries to address the world’s most pressing environmental challenges. The GEF serves as the financial mechanism for several international conventions, including the UNFCCC. 
• Grants 
  Grants are a form of climate finance provided by the Green Climate Fund (GCF) to support climate adaptation and/or mitigation projects in developing countries, with no expectation of repayment. Both international and national entities accredited by the GCF are eligible to receive grants, in line with agreed terms and conditions. 
• Green Climate Fund  
  The Green Climate Fund (GCF) is a global initiative established in 2010 to address climate change by investing in low-emission and climate-resilient development. It supports projects, programmes, policies, and other activities in developing countries. 
• Least Developed Countries 
  Least Developed Countries (LDCs) are considered the world’s poorest countries and exhibit the lowest indicators of socio-economic development and Human Development Index rankings. These countries are least able to cope with the effects of climate change and therefore require additional financial and technical support. Currently, 48 countries are classified as LDCs. 
• Multilateral Implementing Entity  
  Multilateral Implementing Entities are international institutions – such as UN agencies, multilateral development banks, and other international organisations – accredited by the Green Climate Fund (GCF). Eligible countries may select these entities to submit funding proposals on their behalf. These institutions are fully responsible for managing GCF-funded projects and programmes, including monitoring and financial reporting. 
• Small Island Developing States  
  Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are a distinct group of developing countries facing specific social, economic, and environmental vulnerabilities, such as limited resources, susceptibility to natural disasters, heavy dependence on international trade, and fragile ecosystems. The United Nations recognises 39 SIDS, including Cuba, Tonga, and Vanuatu. 
• Adaptation Gap 
  The adaptation gap refers to the difference between the actions needed to adapt to climate change and the actions currently being taken. This gap is driven by significant shortfalls in funding, planning, and implementation, particularly in developing countries.