MANILA, Nov. 18 (Xinhua) -- 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 Asian Development Bank (ADB) report said Monday.
The ADB's Climate Change and Education Playbook said that education systems and nationally determined contributions (NDCs) have not yet caught up with the human development needs of climate-resilient economic growth.
It 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.
"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."
The ADB report made 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, and incorporating the human dimension into upcoming NDCs to pursue climate-resilient pathways. ■