2022.03.08 女孩的教育如何有助于解决气候危机

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Vanessa Nakate on how girls’ education can help solve the climate crisis
The climate activist writes at the invitation of Malala Yousafzai

Mar 8th 2022 (Updated Mar 10th 2022)


DEADLY FLOODING and landslides have become a regular threat in my hometown of Kampala, the capital of Uganda. In 2019, we were hit particularly hard: the rains killed more than a dozen people and washed away people’s belongings and businesses. Waters from Lake Albert submerged primary schools in Ntoroko district, leaving about a thousand young pupils unable to go to school.

Unlike many girls in Uganda, I was lucky enough to receive a secondary education and attend university. Thanks to this, I was able to conduct research about the impact of climate change in my country. It was during this process that I came to understand the terrifying challenge that humanity is facing. But an estimate from 2015 suggests that, across sub-Saharan Africa, 9m girls between 6 and 11 years old will never go to school at all. Many more African girls need to be given the opportunities I had.


Historically Africa has been responsible for less than 4% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Although Africans are the least responsible for global warming, it is in countries like Uganda that people are experiencing some of the worst effects of it. The people who suffer most of all often are those whose rights and freedoms are already the most precarious. It is young women around the world, who are less likely to have access to basic education than young men, that are most likely to suffer violence and repression when hard times hit. They have the most to lose from worsening climate impacts.

Without urgent action, by 2025 climate-related events will prevent at least 12.5m girls around the world from completing their education each year, according to the latest research from Malala Fund, a girls’ education charity founded by the Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai. Extreme weather can damage school facilities, cause migration and increase the reach of disease - girls tend to be the first to be kept home from school in these contexts. There is also evidence that climate-related events are leading to an increase in child marriages and female genital mutilation, as lower crop yields, caused by drought, force desperate families to seek dowry money.

A dearth of education for girls is a crisis itself. It also has implications for the climate because educated young women have the greatest potential to find the most transformative climate solutions. When girls go to school they pick up the skills—especially critical thinking and problem solving—that they need to respond to climate disasters and to acquire green jobs in the future. Such skills will also enable them to help their communities increase resilience to extreme weather events. Education prepares girls to advocate for themselves and to tackle the social-justice issues at the heart of the climate crisis. When girls have access to a quality education and modern contraceptives, it enables women to exercise the choice to have smaller, healthier families, reducing emissions well into the future. This is why Project Drawdown, a charity focused on finding ways to combat climate change, lists girls’ education as one of the most important solutions we have for limiting global heating to 1.5℃ by 2100.



In 2019 I founded Rise Up Movement Africa to draw attention to the effects of the climate crisis in African countries. The continent’s experiences of the climate crisis are often ignored internationally, yet they range far beyond the obvious damage done by extreme weather. Money still floods into Africa to fund fossil-fuel projects, but we need funding for climate solutions instead.

One solution I want world leaders to invest in is gender-equal climate education. This means offering all students a curriculum that does more to investigate the causes of climate change and promote green skills and sustainable values. My generation is passionate about protecting our planet, but many of us aren't equipped with adequate knowledge or skills to handle the problems we’ll soon inherit. Plan International, which advocates for children’s rights, recently surveyed students in 37 countries and 86% of respondents reported they did not get enough information about climate change, nearly half said they did not know anything about the Paris Agreement and only 20% learned about climate activism in school.


I find it hard to trust Western leaders, however, as their countries enact hypocritical policies. Britain, the host of last year’s COP26 UN climate summit, still considers new fossil-fuel projects. The European Union, which likes to call itself a “climate leader,” has labelled gas a “green transition” fuel. And it did not matter to the assembled leaders how loud or persistent young activists were on the streets outside, or how many panels we participated in. When the time came for decision-making, predominantly Western leaders led us to another unsatisfactory outcome.

By investing in girls’ education, more opportunities are created for women to lead. Role models such as Christiana Figueres, who helped run the UN climate talks which led to the Paris agreement of 2015, and Amina Mohammed, who is the UN’s deputy secretary-general, and many others have been trying for years to persuade governments at the COP to be more ambitious. In a study of 130 countries in 2005, researchers found those with a higher proportion of female political leaders were more likely to ratify environmental treaties. Perhaps this is because women understand what is at stake: they know that their rights are more likely to disappear as temperatures rise. Educating a girl will provide her with a brighter future. Empowering young women will provide us all with a lifeline.
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Vanessa Nakate is a climate activist and founder of the Rise Up Movement Africa, which campaigns for environmental action.

Malala Yousafzai, the Nobel peace-prize laureate, has invited Freshta Karim, Vanessa Nakate, Kiara Nirghin and Tigidankay “TK” Saccoh to write essays for International Women’s Day. Visit our hub to read more.



瓦妮莎-纳凯特谈女孩的教育如何有助于解决气候危机
这位气候活动家应马拉拉-尤萨夫扎伊的邀请写道

2022年3月8日 (2022年3月10日更新)


在我的家乡乌干达首都坎帕拉，致命的洪水和山体滑坡已经成为一种经常性的威胁。在2019年，我们受到的打击特别大：大雨导致十几个人死亡，并冲走了人们的财产和生意。阿尔伯特湖的水淹没了恩托罗科区的小学，使大约一千名小学生无法上学。

与乌干达的许多女孩不同，我很幸运地接受了中学教育并上了大学。正因为如此，我得以对我国气候变化的影响进行研究。正是在这个过程中，我逐渐了解到人类正面临的可怕挑战。但是，2015年的一项估计表明，在整个撒哈拉以南非洲地区，900万名6至11岁的女孩将根本无法上学。更多的非洲女孩需要得到我所拥有的机会。


历史上，非洲对世界温室气体排放的责任不到4%。虽然非洲人对全球变暖的责任最小，但正是在乌干达这样的国家，人们正经历着全球变暖的一些最严重影响。受害最深的人往往是那些权利和自由已经最不稳定的人。世界各地的年轻女性比年轻男性更不可能获得基础教育，她们在困难时期最有可能遭受暴力和压迫。她们因气候影响的恶化而损失最大。

根据诺贝尔奖得主马拉拉-尤萨夫扎伊创办的女童教育慈善机构马拉拉基金的最新研究，如果不采取紧急行动，到2025年，与气候有关的事件将使全世界每年至少有1250万女童无法完成教育。极端天气会破坏学校设施，导致移民，并增加疾病的影响--在这些情况下，女孩往往是第一个被留在家中的人。还有证据表明，与气候有关的事件正导致童婚和女性生殖器切割的增加，因为干旱导致的农作物减产迫使绝望的家庭寻求嫁妆资金。

女孩教育的匮乏本身就是一种危机。它对气候也有影响，因为受过教育的年轻妇女有最大的潜力来找到最具变革性的气候解决方案。当女孩上学时，她们会学到技能，特别是批判性思维和解决问题的能力，这是她们应对气候灾害和在未来获得绿色工作所需要的。这些技能也将使她们能够帮助她们的社区提高对极端天气事件的抵御能力。教育使女孩准备好为自己辩护，并解决作为气候危机核心的社会公正问题。当女孩有机会获得优质教育和现代避孕药具时，它使妇女能够选择拥有更小、更健康的家庭，在未来减少排放。这就是为什么专注于寻找应对气候变化方法的慈善机构Project Drawdown将女孩的教育列为我们在2100年前将全球升温限制在1.5℃的最重要解决方案之一。



2019年，我成立了非洲崛起运动，以引起人们对非洲国家气候危机影响的关注。非洲大陆在气候危机中的经历往往被国际社会所忽视，但其范围远远超出了极端天气造成的明显损害。资金仍然涌入非洲，资助化石燃料项目，但我们需要资金来解决气候问题。

我希望世界领导人投资的一个解决方案是性别平等的气候教育。这意味着为所有学生提供一个课程，在调查气候变化的原因和促进绿色技能和可持续价值观方面做得更多。我们这一代人对保护我们的星球充满热情，但我们中的许多人并没有掌握足够的知识或技能来处理我们即将继承的问题。倡导儿童权利的国际计划组织最近对37个国家的学生进行了调查，86%的受访者表示他们没有得到足够的气候变化信息，近一半的人表示他们对《巴黎协定》一无所知，只有20%的人在学校了解到气候行动主义。


然而，我发现很难相信西方领导人，因为他们的国家制定了虚伪的政策。作为去年COP26联合国气候峰会的东道主，英国仍然考虑新的化石燃料项目。喜欢称自己为 "气候领袖 "的欧盟，将天然气称为 "绿色过渡 "燃料。对于与会的领导人来说，年轻的活动家们在外面的街道上有多大声或多坚持，或者我们参加了多少小组讨论，都不重要。当决策的时候，以西方为主的领导人将我们引向另一个不满意的结果。

通过投资女孩的教育，为女性创造了更多的领导机会。克里斯蒂安娜-菲格雷斯(Christiana Figueres)等榜样，她帮助主持了联合国气候谈判，促成了2015年的巴黎协议，阿米娜-穆罕默德(Amina Mohammed)是联合国副秘书长，还有其他许多人多年来一直在努力说服缔约方会议上的政府更有雄心。在2005年对130个国家的研究中，研究人员发现那些女性政治领导人比例较高的国家更有可能批准环境条约。也许这是因为女性明白其中的利害关系：她们知道，随着气温的升高，她们的权利更有可能消失。教育一个女孩将为她提供一个更光明的未来。赋予年轻女性权力将为我们所有人提供一条生命线。
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瓦妮莎-纳凯特（Vanessa Nakate）是一位气候活动家，也是非洲崛起运动的创始人，该运动倡导环保行动。

诺贝尔和平奖得主马拉拉-尤萨夫扎伊邀请弗雷斯塔-卡里姆、瓦妮莎-纳凯特、基拉-尼尔金和蒂吉丹凯-萨科赫为国际妇女节写文章。请访问我们的中心，阅读更多内容。