Empowering Girls through Education: A Crucial Step for Advancing Climate Action?
“12 years of safe and quality education for all children, and specifically girls, is one of the most cost-effective and impactful social and economic investments governments and donors can make.” - G7 Declaration on Girls’ Education (UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, 2021
A large amount of literature has clearly outlined the importance of climate education in advancing climate action, but an important yet morally controversial question that rarely gets factored in such recurring discussions is “given the large-scale need, who should be prioritized for receiving this education?”
From a rational standpoint, the answer to this question finds itself in the Pareto Principle or what some of you might know as the 80/20 rule, which purports that 80% of outcomes result from 20% of causes. But then again, in the context of climate education the question still persists, what are the standards according to which we can measure such an impact? Here, a climate justice standpoint would need to be introduced, where in this case, priority should be given to the people who suffer the most from the climate crisis, yet happen to simultaneously possess the most potential in utilizing such education to upend the impacts of said crisis.
This brings us to the elusive quote that has welcomed you in the beginning of this blog post, for upon relying on the above premises, it should become very clear that women and girls from all over the world, but especially those living in global majority communities, should be given an increased priority when it comes to climate education delivery; as they happen to be one of the Most Affected People and Areas (MAPA) by climate change. This has been continuously exhibited by how climate change induced extreme weather events can lead to economic losses, conflicts, and famines, all of which have a wide range of spillover effects on women and girls. These effects include but are not limited to the rise of early girl marriage in impoverished communities, the subsequent increase of the care burden and the augmentation of the issue of time poverty for women and girl’s; as they have to walk longer distances to secure food and nourishment. Such repercussions not only exacerbate the likelihood of being exposed to sexual harassment and forced displacement; but it ultimately leads to widening the gender inequality gap where more girls are forced to leave their education to reduce the “economic burden” on their families as climate change extreme weather events destroy crop yields, thereby ruining entire families livelihoods and shattering girls dreams along with it.
Nevertheless, even though, “I [ as a woman] am a victim of the climate crisis and I am not ashamed to say so'' as has been bravely stated by Hilda Flavia the Ugandan Climate and Environmental Activist, it is time to see how such victims can be important agents of change in fighting the climate crisis upon receiving the necessary tools through intentional and gender responsive education. And before jumping to conclusions, no they don’t all have to take leadership positions to be able to do that as you will see below:
1. Girls Contribution in Climate Mitigation:
Climate education can help women of all socio-economic backgrounds and social roles play an important roles in countries mitigation and that is through:
a. Engendering Conscious Consumerism: As has been alluded to above, women’s power in the climate crisis starts from taking individual and household actions, where it trickles down to include ownership of the political and economic decisions within the household. Said premise is largely informed by the positive decisions that such education can breed, including reducing the fatal trait of consumerism, where household consumption accounts for 60% of global emissions due to the embedded emission’s opportunity in the production processes and beyond.
b. Green Skills Development and Transitioning to the Green Economy: Despite being touted as one of the key pillars to salvaging the planet, the transition to the green economy remains to be exclusive of girls where according to a 2017 article released by Brookings institute; “current workforce development efforts to retrofit women’s skills for green sector jobs come too late in a woman’s life.” A reality that I myself have lived through as an Egyptian woman, who learned about the climate crisis in the late age of 19. Accordingly, investing in girls' education will help them acquire the necessary green skills that can allow women and girls to better penetrate the green job markets, accordingly reducing their participation in brown sectors.
c. Empowering Women in Policy-Making Positions: Several studies based on recent precedent purport that women in policy-making positions tend to produce more climate and environmental friendly policies as opposed to their male counterparts. This applies in the private sector as well, where according to insights from the World Bank a 1 percent increase in women firm managers corresponds to an 0.5 percent decrease in CO2 emissions and overall greater transparency.
d. Enhancing their Creativity and Efforts in Climate Breakthrough Development: Climate education plays a crucial role for girls and women’s ability to generate a number of climate innovations and breakthroughs that are necessary to combat the climate crisis across borders. A real life example has been provided by techovation, an organization that invests in girls’ education in technology for the development of climate innovations paving their way to becoming ecopreneurs.
2. Education and Improving Climate Resilience and Adaptation Efforts:
According to the 2017 study conducted by Brookings institute, a country’s resilience to climate change is largely influenced by girls’ education where every additional year of provided schooling for girls leads to increasing the country’s climate resilience status under the Notre Dame Environemntal Change Index by at least 3.2 points. Additionally, green skills education help enhance women’s resilience to climate change where the majority of them work in climate sensitive jobs including agriculture.
Figure A perfectly summarizes the potential that girl’s education has on advancing mitigation and adaptation efforts on an individual, household/community level, school level and ultimately a system’s level. Yet despite its potential, it remains to be one of the most nuanced topics that don’t take sufficient room in countries’ NDCs where as of 2021 only four countries had included girls as part of the fight against climate change as has been reported by Plan International.
Image Source Camille Pankhrust, 2022
Based on the above, while investing in girls' and women's climate education is not the sole solution to the climate crisis as:
This amount of burden shouldn’t be thrust upon one group.
The agency of each woman and girl isn’t unified where there are several other variables that might determine the impact each person might have on the fight against the climate crisis on top of which comes the extent of the intersectional identities that they carry including, but not limited to gender, race, class and more.
Saying otherwise would insinuate the provision of an oversimplification to a convoluted crisis.
Nevertheless, It can’t be denied that girls' education will have substantive positive implications that extend beyond the confines of the wellbeing of women and girls, to include communities as a whole.
Finally, it is important to reiterate the importance of investing in education for women and girls. Here it is crucial to be reminded of the different connotations that the word investment holds, for it isn’t just about investing money, it is also about investing in girls with trust, and embracing the risk that might come with such an investment, big or small.
References:
Brixi , H., Sara, J. J., & Peschka, M. P. (2022, November). People and planet together: Why women and girls are at the heart of climate action. World Bank Blogs. https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/climatechange/people-and-planet-together-why-women-a nd-girls-are-heart-climate-action
Christina Kwauk, A. B., Rebecca Winthrop, C. K., Choden, T., & Nasrin Siddiqa, A. R.-V. (2022, March 9). 3 ways to link girls’ education actors to climate action. Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/3-ways-to-link-girls-education-actors-to-climate-actio n/
Girls and women are at the frontlines of Climate Change. Technovation. (2022, September 21). https://www.technovation.org/blogs/event-how-women-ecopreneurs-are-fighting-climate change/
Girls’ education and our climate future. Technovation. (2024, April 18). https://www.technovation.org/girls-education-climate-future/
Our work // Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative // University of Notre Dame. Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative. (n.d.). https://gain.nd.edu/our-work/
Pankhurst, C. (2022). Girls’ education and climate change: A critical review of the ... Gendereddata. https://www.gendereddata.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Girls-Education-and-Climate -Change-Critical-Review-of-the-Literature_FINAL-2.pdf
Rani Sarker, M., & Puskur, R. (2022, March 7). Climate change and time poverty trap women in a vicious cycle. International Rice Research Institute.
https://www.irri.org/news-and-events/news/climate-change-and-time-poverty-trap-wome n-vicious-cycle
Schnuck, P., Banerjee, A., Hop, A., Obermann, W., & Savanovic, S. (2023, June 15). Conscious consumerism: Understanding the dilemmas of today’s consumer. Deloitte Netherlands. https://www2.deloitte.com/nl/nl/pages/consumer/articles/conscious-consumerism.html
Tardi, C. (2023). The 80-20 rule (aka pareto principle): What it is, how it works. Investopedia. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/1/80-20-rule.asp
Thomas, C. (Ed.). (2023). Climate change and girls’ education: Barriers ... Plan International. https://plan-international.org/uploads/2023/11/Climate-Change-and-Girls-Education_Exe cSummary_Nov2023.pdf
Worland, J. (2023, December 5). Tackling climate change through consumption may be harder than it seems. Time. https://time.com/6341884/climate-change-consumption/
About the author:
Nada Hazem is a climate justice activist with over four years of experience in climate education and facilitation. She works part-time as a researcher at N Gage Consulting and as a Political Science Teaching Assistant at Alexandria University. Nada has engaged with various organizations and programs focused on climate action and development, including Banlastic Egypt and the Climate Reality Project. She has facilitated over 50 environmental workshops, attended climate conferences such as COP27 and COP28, and led projects on climate change impacts.
