The continued burning of fossil fuels is causing schools around the world to close for days, sometimes weeks, and threatens to undermine one of the greatest global achievements of recent decades: early childhood education.
The picture illustrates one of the starkest gaps in climate change. According to data recently published by UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, children today experience many more days of abnormal heat than their grandparents.
Consider the magnitude of some recent school closures.
Pakistan closed schools for half of its pupils – or 26 million children – for a whole week in May when temperatures were expected to soar to over 40 degrees Celsius. Bangladesh closed schools for half of its pupils during a heatwave in April, affecting 33 million children. The same happened in South Sudan in April. The Philippines ordered schools closed for two days when the heat reached what the country’s meteorological department called “dangerous” levels.
And in the United States, hot days prompted school closures or early terminations in districts from Massachusetts to Colorado last school year. They still account for a small share of total school days, though a recent estimate suggests their number is rising rapidly, from about three days a year a few years ago to twice that now, with many more expected by mid-century.
In short, heat waves, exacerbated by the buildup of planet-warming gases in the atmosphere, are making learning difficult. Even if schools are open, extremely high temperatures, especially for several hours, hurt learning outcomes, including test scores, research shows.
“We are deeply concerned that the number of days of extreme heat is indirectly leading to learning losses,” Lily Caprani, UNICEF’s head of advocacy, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday.
A generation gap
The effects of school closures are a stark illustration of the generational divide posed by climate hazards. According to Unicef data, one in five children around the world now experiences twice as many days of extreme heat as their grandparents.
In total, 466 million children around the world today live in areas that experience at least twice as many days of extreme heat, defined as more than 35 degrees Celsius, than their grandparents.
This gap is most severe for children in low- and middle-income countries. Children in 16 countries, including most Sahel countries, now experience at least 30 more days of extreme heat per year compared to six decades ago.
Extreme weather hazards, especially unusually high temperatures, are a hallmark of man-made climate change, driven by the burning of coal, oil and gas. The past 150 years of industrialization have shown that global average temperatures have risen. This year, this trend has been exacerbated by a natural cyclical weather phenomenon known as ENSO, or El Niño-Southern Oscillation. The El Niño phase that ended in June contributed to outsized heat waves, making 2024 a candidate to be the hottest year on record, along with 2023.
Location matters
The generation gap is most marked in some of the world’s poorest countries.
Nearly 40 percent of children in Benin and 66 percent of those in Côte d’Ivoire, for example, will experience twice as many days of extreme heat in their lifetime as their grandparents. The same is true for two out of three children in Palestine and almost half of those in Honduras.
Some rich countries are also suffering the consequences. An estimated 85 percent of children in France and 76 percent of those in Greece will experience twice as many days of extreme heat as in the 1960s.
South Asian countries are outliers in some ways, according to the data. Unicef analysts note that they have long had many days with temperatures above 35 degrees Celsius, and while India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have all suffered deadly heat waves in recent years, the data show no significant increase in their frequency over three generations.
There is no comprehensive global data on days when schools are closed due to extreme weather. Decisions are usually made locally and often quickly, based on weather forecasts. Still, based on media reports, the UN Secretary-General’s office recently estimated that at least 80 million children would be out of school by 2024 due to extreme heat alone.
The impact of climate change on schooling is all the more important because education has made enormous progress in recent decades. School enrolment has increased considerably, and literacy rates have also improved. This progress appears to have stalled. For various reasons, including war and the coronavirus pandemic, the number of children out of school is increasing, according to the latest global data.
Around half of those out-of-school children live in the most climate-vulnerable countries, according to a separate analysis by global charity Save the Children.
The floods
The floods have also wreaked havoc on schools.
In Brazil, deadly flooding exacerbated by climate change caused schools to close for weeks, affecting tens of thousands of students. In India, schools closed for days in several parts of the country in July and August, including in the state of Kerala, where flooding, made more intense by man-made climate change, killed more than 200 people.
An earlier report, based on climate models and published by Save the Children, found that on average, a child born in 2020 is projected to experience almost three times as many river floods and twice as many wildfires over their lifetime as a person born in 1960.
However, the gap between generations is even greater when it comes to heat. According to the analysis, a child born in 2020 will experience almost seven times as many heat waves over their lifetime as a person born in 1960.
According to the analysis, children in low- and middle-income countries – the parts of the world least responsible for greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change – are expected to suffer “the most dangerous effects”.
Schools must adapt to the heat
Scientists say the only way to tackle rising global temperatures is to stop burning fossil fuels, the main cause of global warming. But even if that were to happen – and there is little evidence that it is happening at the speed and scale needed – schools need to find ways to cope with rising temperatures.
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The most obvious measure is to retrofit school buildings to keep heat out of classrooms more effectively, with better insulation, reflective white paint or green plants on roofs and shade trees on the periphery of the school.
Air conditioning is a luxury beyond the reach of most schools. Even in the U.S., about half of school districts need to install or repair their air conditioning systems, according to the Government Accountability Office.
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