GREEN Members’ Thoughts on COP28

COP 28 – What Happened?

The most amount of focus was on curriculum and education technology (particularly focusing on the teaching and learning process… from the government counterparts there was a lot of focus on system preparedness, early warning systems, and adaptation.

Emma Gremley, International Rescue Committee

I noticed a very strong focus on adaptation to climate crises.

Estelle Day, World Education

The COP presidency did not put anything on education in the formal COP presidency agenda because they had these two other parties of government in the green zone having their own separate space where they were creating their own agendas but I think, in the end, the education sector lost because of that.

Sarah Beardmore, Global Partnership for Education

Positives

The education sector has finally embraced the issue of climate change in a much more serious way and having more visibility on the intersection between climate change and education is good. The momentum is amazing.

Sarah Beardmore, Global Partnership for Education

It was a good experience, quite a bit learning to take forward.

Shripathi Hadigal, Restless Development

There’s a kind of more holistic approach that’s getting more traction, which is exciting… We’re starting to breakdown some of the silos in education.

Sarah Beardmore, Global Partnership for Education

Critiques

Materials, resources, platforms… for teachers are becoming more and more available, but not in a systematic way and not all teachers have opportunities to connect with it.

Inge Vandevyvere, VVOB

There wasn’t a lot of discussion about how education may look totally different in 5 years, where does AI come in? Are children learning in a very different platform/modality/engagement because of having to deal with these crises? And it felt like a missed opportunity to bring that conversation to the forefront.

Rebecca Chandler-Leege, World Reader

Overwhelmingly and underwhelming at the same time.

Emma Gremley, International Rescue Committee

GREEN: Moving Forward

For me I would see a real urgent need for us, as we look at the COP agenda next year in Azerbaijan to see how we can actually integrate into the mainstream discussions around, for example, adaptation finance, you know there’s a HUGE role that education systems can play in building the resilience of communities… We need to be penetrating those spaces and making much clearer the links between what we’re doing and the kind of broader, global challenges we have around climate change.

Sarah Beardmore, Global Partnership for Education

There is a lot of conversation around education in a formal sort of set up… but I didn’t see a lot really happening [on education] in informal set ups.. How do we engage young mothers with kids at one or two years old? … Even before getting into formal education how do we connect with young mothers?

Shripathi Hadigal, Restless Development

Challenge now is to unite as education sector, go beyond individual level to build bridges outside of the education sector.

Inge Vandevyvere, VVOB

Important going forward is to really keep on eye out for how these different fundings sort of evolve, at least be a catalytic entity in putting some pilots on the ground, not just having conversations but really being evolved in action on the ground so it becomes a replicable modal for other entities to come in.

Shripathi Hadigal, Restless Development