Universal education is key to enhanced climate adaptation

Abstract

Over the coming years, enormous amounts of money will likely be spent on adaptation to climate change. The international community recently made pledges of up to $100 billion per year by 2020 for the Green Climate Fund. Judging from such climate finance to date, funding for large projects overwhelmingly goes to engineers to build seawalls, dams, or irrigation systems (1). But with specific projections of future changes in climate in specific locations still highly uncertain, such heavy concrete (in both meanings) and immobile investments that can lock countries into certain paths may not be the best way to go (2). Our new study suggests that it may be efficient and effective to give part of this fund to educators rather than engineers. Public investment in universal education in poor countries in the near future should be seen as a top priority for enhancing societies' adaptive capacity vis-à-vis future climate change

Forecasting societies' adaptive capacities through a demographic metabolism model

“…Most extant studies on human loss from climate hazards nevertheless commonly consider either only GDP [55][56][57] or a composite indicator such as Human Development Index 61 . In fact, when the latter is decomposed into its three elements (income, education and health) 62 , the results show that countries with higher level of education on average did experience lower disaster mortality while income did not play a significant role 60 .…”

“…Testing these contradictory hypotheses is beyond the scope of this Perspective. There is however evidence based on a study of disaster-related mortality in 167 countries over the period 1970-2010 confirming that female education is the most significant factor resulting in fewer deaths from climate-related disasters after controlling for the effect of income 60 . Most extant studies on human loss from climate hazards nevertheless commonly consider either only GDP [55][56][57] or a composite indicator such as Human Development Index 61 .…”

“…Not only were educated individuals more likely to survive and had a lower risk of injuries e.g. from the 2004 Indian ocean tsunami 71,72 , communities and countries with higher average levels of education also experienced much lower losses in human lives from climate-related disasters 60,62,65,73 . The protective role of education further extends to morbidity associated with natural hazards, especially mental health with more highly educated individuals showing a lower prevalence of distress, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder following a disaster 71,[74][75][76] .…”

“…A recent study of disaster fatalities translated estimated determinants of disaster vulnerability including education to the SSP1 and SSP3 scenarios for the rest of the century 60 . It was shown that due to the educational expansion under the rapid social development path in SSP1, disaster mortality will be much lower -even in the case of increasing climate related hazard -than in the SSP3 scenario where underinvestment in education leads to high population growth and heightened vulnerability.…”

Health and climate change: policy responses to protect public health

“…56 Educational levels and other demographic factors are also important in the ability of societies to cope with extreme events. 57 Allowing for these caveats, figure 4D shows growing exposure in global projections of the number of people older than 65 years exposed to heatwave risks. The numbers of events of elderly people experiencing high temperatures reaches more than 3 billion towards the end of the century.…”