What happened for education at COP26 – and what’s next?

By Anja Nielsen - Senior Policy Adviser for Education and Youth at the UK Committee for UNICEF (UNICEF UK)

• Tens of thousands of advocates, young people, politicians, and government representatives attended COP26 in Glasgow between 1-12 November 2021 – with education firmly on the agenda.

• COP26 saw the first-ever Education and Environment Ministers’ Summit, the agreement of a new work programme on Action for Climate Empowerment and a ringing endorsement from leaders for climate education.

• While lots was achieved for education we must keep up the momentum on climate education, strengthening a rights-based approach and build education’s resilience to climate change.

09.11.21 - In a COP26 side event, youth advocates joined education partners to highlight the importance of quality education in advancing climate justice and youth leadership.

As tens of thousands of advocates, young people, politicians, and other climate change stakeholders descended on Glasgow this past fortnight, the future of the planet felt almost tangible enough to touch. But as Kirsty Newman from the RISE Programme noted at a side event on Gender Day, for many children “the learning crisis is as much of an existential crisis as the climate crisis.”

But was this recognised in the halls of the Scottish Events Campus? The answer, predictably, is yes but more is needed.

With education both impacted by climate change and a core part of the solution, COP26 provided perhaps the best opportunity in recent memory to connect these agendas. What follows is a brief reflection on what was won – and what is left to win – for climate education.

Education was firmly on the table

From moments as small as familiar refrains in speeches to impressive set pieces like the Education and Environment Ministerial, education was certainly a feature of COP26. The sheer volume of side events related to this subject – so many that you’d be forgiven for missing some of them! – reiterates this fact.

Regulars of the COP halls confirm that education had an unprecedented profile this year. And with climate change set to be a contributing factor preventing 12.5 million girls from attending school each by 2025, as well as strong calls from youth activists for more climate education, this comes not a moment too soon.

A new Glasgow Work Programme on Action for Climate Empowerment (ACE)

Action for Climate Empowerment (ACE) is the part of the UNFCCC concerned with public engagement on climate change, including education. As the Doha Work Programme on ACE expired in 2020, a new work programme was agreed for the next 10-year period. The decision includes strong support for education, including encouraging stakeholders to collaborate, promote, and develop education on climate change, strengthening education, training and skills in this area and integrating climate education into school curricula.

Importantly, the decision also recognises the need to target the involvement of women and respect indigenous knowledge.

The ACE decision also includes a welcome focus on youth engagement, calling ‘for further enhancement of youth participation in climate change processes and in unleashing the potential of Action for Climate Empowerment’. In fact, the first in-session dialogue of the new work programme, taking place in June 2022, will focus on child and youth engagement.

Strong support for girls’ education

You would be hard-pressed to find a stronger endorsement for girls’ education than what Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi told the crowd on Gender Day: ‘If I ruled the world, the one thing I would do would be invest in the education of women and girls’.

And indeed, the power and importance of girls’ education was time and again reiterated throughout COP26. Even the final Glasgow Climate Pact ‘Urges Parties to swiftly begin implementing the Glasgow work programme on Action for Climate Empowerment, respecting, promoting and considering their respective obligations on human rights, as well as gender equality and empowerment of women.’

But the rights-based approach to climate education could be strengthened

While human rights are recognised in the Pact, a rights-based approach to climate education is still lacking.

Much of the discussion on climate education seems to focus on green skills, infrastructure, and the ability to support a just transition. All of these are critical to mitigating climate change. But more focus is needed on education that recognises the social justice, gendered, and rights implications of climate change.

Without these elements, climate education remains incomplete.

05.11.21 - Joint event of Education and Environment Ministers Summit - Together for Tomorrow: Education and Climate Action

We still need a stronger focus on systems strengthening

The impact of climate change on education has not gone amiss at COP26, as this wrap-up suggests. In just one indication, the UK Prime Minister’s Special Envoy for Girls’ Education Helen Grant MP highlighted at a UK Pavilion event that an ‘effective emergency education response is vital’.

However, education in the climate crisis requires more than an emergency response. Systems strengthening in the context of climate change, including addressing the knock-on, long-term economic and displacement impacts, must be a part of the climate education conversation. Much more work is needed to encourage support for a long-term approach to climate resilient education systems that are prepared for the shocks we know are coming – even if they are slow in their arrival. 

COP26 must be the diving board, not the pool

If education negotiations begin and end with COP26, we risk ending in a swirling pool of negotiations and discussions about the importance, power, and need for climate education – with little action and investment.

When reflecting on this, I hear the words of youth activists ringing in my ears: ‘what do we want? Climate education. When do we want it? 30 years ago.’ If we go another 30 years at this pace, we will be 60 years too late.

Transformative action requires leadership

However, to deliver this change requires leadership at national, regional and global levels.

This year Parliamentarians across the world showed their commitment to climate action ahead of and at COP, including IPNEd Co-Chair Harriett Baldwin MP who wrote to COP President Sharma sharing the Network’s support for education as a core part of the solution to preventing the effects of climate change and highlighting the impact that climate change has on education systems.

As Glasgow returns to normal and its streets empty of suits and shuttles, COP26 brings a sense of hope that this could be the turning point for climate education.

Parliamentarians around the world should continue to hold their governments accountable to the pledges and commitments made in Glasgow. The opportunity for leadership, both as advocates for more resilient education systems and in providing oversight of pledges already made, is one which cannot be underestimated.

This could be the moment when climate education goes from ‘nice to have’ to ‘need to have’. We must all work together to make a rights-based and resilient climate education a reality, for every child.

Anja Nielsen is the Senior Policy Adviser, Education and Youth at the UK Committee for UNICEF. In this role, Anja leads the organisation's domestic and international education policy advocacy, focussing on a broad range of issues from digital inclusion to the impact of climate change-related displacement on education. She has a background working with teachers, youth programs, and international development policy across a range of organizations.