Governments in Asia and the Pacific must invest in education and training to comprehensively develop climate literacy and green skills needed for low-carbon economies.
A new report from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) suggests that education systems and nationally determined contributions (NDCs) have not yet caught up with the human development needs of climate-resilient economic growth.
Globally, the demand for green jobs is outpacing the supply of green workers, according to the ADB's Climate Change and Education Playbook launched today (18 November).
The report also stressed the need for schools to adapt to the impacts of climate change, as extreme weather is significantly increasing school closures and affecting learning outcomes and household incomes over the long term.
With the right green investments, the transition to a low-carbon economy could create more than 230 million jobs in Asia and the Pacific by 2030, according to the report.
Around eight million coal industry workers in the region will need reskilling as coal industries are phasing out. Additionally, all 4.7 billion citizens in the region require basic climate knowledge and awareness.
The report said Bangladesh's coastal location and low-lying land render it one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to climate change, leading to high economic and non-economic costs related to loss and damage (e.g., loss of life, mobility, environment, health, and/or knowledge).
In the last decade, flooding incidences have worsened in terms of frequency and magnitude. Climate projections indicate that this trend is expected to continue with rising temperatures and precipitation.
Failure to address climate change impacts is estimated to result in a 6.8% loss in GDP per year by 2030.
The increasing pressures of climate change, coupled with the global push for sustainability, demand that businesses shift toward climate-resilient and resource-efficient industry practices and adoption of green technologies essential for economic competitiveness.
However, there is a significant gap in green skills among the current workforce and a shortage of competent mid-level managers who can champion climate-resilient business models and environmentally conscious operations.
These shortcomings hinder industries from integrating green technologies and sustainable practices that can increase industry competitiveness and move up the global value chains.
Compounded by underemployment and rising youth unemployment, this lack of skilled green workforce contributes to a missed opportunity for inclusive green growth.
In India, for example, the report said students who experience prolonged exposure to storms are about seven percent more likely to fall behind in school and will experience an eight percent drop in household income on average.
Last year, extreme heat in the Philippines closed schools for 32 days, while Pakistan's devastating floods in 2022 damaged some 17,000 schools, disrupting education for 2.6 million children, according to the ADB report.
"Making education systems climate-ready is a key policy agenda in the coming years," said ADB Sectors Group Director General Ramesh Subramaniam.
"We must make education systems climate-ready at various levels-from the curriculum to infrastructure and teacher education so that students develop the skills to enable the green transition," he added.
The report aligns with the Baku Initiative on Human Development for Climate Resilience launched today at a COP29 high-level meeting attended by COP President and Azerbaijan Minister for Ecology and Natural Resources Mukhtar Babayev, Subramaniam, and other global development organizations and government representatives.
The report makes several calls to action to build climate resilience through education, such as enabling transformative climate literacy for children and youth, building green skills for the current and future workforce, incorporating the human dimension into upcoming NDCs and supporting the education and training of women, disadvantaged youth and the marginalized to pursue climate-resilient pathways.
Governments in developing Asia must ensure that they incorporate clear, substantive measures to harness education and training in forthcoming updates to their NDCs under the Paris Agreement.
Doing so can ensure that education systems strategically enable countries' paths to decarbonization based on climate literacy, green skills, and the research and development required to achieve national mitigation and adaptation goals.
ADB recently announced a new financing programme that will enable it to increase its education investments.
Under a partnership signed with the International Finance Facility for Education--a sovereign-backed Swiss foundation, the organisation will guarantee $125 million of ADB's existing loan portfolio, which the bank will then leverage four times to generate a new $500 million in new concessional financing for lower-middle-income countries in Asia and the Pacific.
