The 2020 Send My Friend to School campaign The Right Climate to Learn is live today – you can download your Teacher’s Pack now! 

The Right Climate to Learn highlights education’s vital role in a global climate response; a role that is being grossly neglected.

Today, we launch a briefing that sets out the interplay between education and climate change, and why we must include education within an effective global climate response.

The briefing shows that quality, safe and inclusive education systems are critical in facing and fighting climate change, particularly for the most marginalised communities in the poorest countries. This is because education provides children with the basic and higher order skills and knowledge needed to navigate a changing climate; education is life-saving and life-sustaining in times of climate induced crisis and displacement; and education empowers children and young people to create a more sustainable future.

Yet, despite this, education is neglected in the global climate response.

Education systems serving the children and young people most at risk in a changing climate are not preparing them with the skills, knowledge, behaviours and attitudes needed. 262 million children remain out of school, and millions more children who do access school are not acquiring even the most basic and foundational skills needed to survive.

Furthermore, education systems serving children and young people most at risk in a changing climate are too often not prepared to cope with climate related disasters, slow-onset climate impacts and displacement. Nearly 40 million children a year have their education interrupted by natural disasters and subsequent disease outbreaks following extreme weather events.
The most marginalised children in the poorest countries, including girls, children with disabilities, refugees and IDPs and children living in poverty fare the worst as a result of education being neglected in a global climate response.

2020 is crucial in securing the right climate to learn for all children, including the poorest and most marginalised.

This year the UK government will host an international climate summit, the Conference of the Parties 26 (COP26), where world leaders will convene to discuss action on tackling climate change.

The Send My Friend to School coalition is calling on the UK government to seize the opportunity it has in 2020 as host of COP26, and as a respected world leader in global education, to take decisive action to stop climate change undermining the right to education and strengthen education’s role in the global climate response.

That’s why thousands of young people across the UK are joining the campaign to create paper hearts for their local MPs to call on the government to take action and ensure the right climate to learn for all children.

In the next few months, the Send My Friend to School coalition will launch a detailed report on climate change and education to set out concrete steps that the UK Government can take to build resiliencies that will safeguard children and their right to education in our changing climate.

Children around the world have made their voices heard on climate change, it is time we listen and take action.

Join the campaign today to support The Right Climate to Learn and get your FREE teaching resource pack with everything you need to bring the campaign to life in your classroom – including films, real life stories and activities.