Ei-iE

The 10th Education International (EI) World Congress, meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from 29 July to 2 August 2024, notes that:

1. There is scientific consensus that the elements of climate change being experienced as global climate emergencies are mainly caused by humans, specifically through the epoch of industrialisation by burning fossil fuels;
2. The human-induced global climate emergency is causing damage to the environment, destruction of livelihoods and infrastructure, and loss of lives;
3. The human-induced global climate emergency already poses an existential threat to some entire island nations;
4. The Global Risk Report 2024 ^[1] found that extreme weather events posed the highest risk to the planet in the long term (ten years) and the second highest risk in the immediate future (two years). This is experienced in diverse regions as events such as frequent, severe tropical cyclones/hurricanes, catastrophic wildfires and deep droughts;
5. The Global Risk Report 2024 ^[1] found that, in the long term (ten years), as a result of breaching a critical threshold or ‘tipping point’, at a regional or global level, climate change threatens a serious modification of one or more critical planetary systems causing potentially irreversible and self-perpetuating change that will have abrupt and severe impacts on planet health and/or human welfare. This includes but is not limited to: sea level rise from collapsing ice sheets; carbon release from thawing permafrost; and disruption of ocean or atmospheric currents;
6. COP28 ^[2] Dubai concluded a “Global Stocktake” of actions taken under the Paris Agreement ^[3] (2015) and determined that progress was too slow across all areas of climate action – from reducing greenhouse gas emissions, to strengthening resilience to a changing climate, to getting the financial and technological support to vulnerable nations;
7. The Asia Pacific Region generally, and the Pacific Region specifically, represents the largest and most vulnerable group of nations impacted by the human-induced climate emergency;
8. The existing inequalities between countries and among social groups, particularly First Nations peoples and women and girls, within countries impacts their capacity to deal with the human-induced climate emergency and its consequences;
9. In both 2020 and 2021, wealthy nations failed to deliver the critical finance pledge of $100 billion per year in the terms of the Paris Agreement ^[3], investment that was designed to assist vulnerable developing countries to transition to clean energy sources and adapt to climate change;
10. The less than $75 billion per year available for adaptation and transition represents a small fraction of the estimated $200-$400 billion annual cost;
11. The $700 million pledged to the Loss and Damage Fund determined at COP28 ^[2] Dubai represents only a fraction of the estimated repair bill of $200- $800 billion per year arising directly from the human-induced global climate emergency;
12. $1 trillion per year is needed to fund adaptation and repair damage caused by the human-induced climate emergency.

Further, Congress believes that:

13. Human-induced climate emergencies are having a real and demonstrable negative impact on the lives of millions of people, their schools and communities;
14. Human-induced climate emergencies are placing at significant risk the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, including the achievement of the goals for the education of women and girls, and offends the principles of the UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child;
15. Indigenous knowledge systems are fundamental to addressing human-induced climate emergencies and should be centred within the actions taken to educate communities, target actions to adapt to new global environmental realities and mitigate the impacts on people, communities, and cultures;
16. A key feature of Indigenous knowledge systems is Traditional Environmental Knowledge (TEK) – specific knowledge and understandings of complex environmental systems and interconnections. Such knowledge is:

1. Specific to each country and locality under threat from the human-induced climate emergency;
2. Has been developed over generations of experience and interaction with specific environments;
3. Could not be replicated in a new location leading to compounding impacts from cultural and environmental dislocation;

17. The Education International Manifesto on Quality Climate Change Education for All expresses the views of the teaching profession on delivering real change in communities across the globe through high quality, well-funded and inclusive education programmes, equipment, facilities, and professional learning;
18. The Go Public! Fund Education campaign must facilitate the delivery of significant additional funding for climate action education.

Congress resolves that the Executive Board:

19. Calls on the United Nations, all governments and world leaders to:

1. Implement meaningful climate change interventions consistent with the COP26 ^[4] Glasgow Declaration to limit global temperature rise to below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the increase to 1.5 °C;
2. Mindful of the global stocktake completed at COP28 ^[2], provide meaningful and substantial monetary and in-kind compensation to countries and communities affected by human-induced global climate emergencies;
3. Develop and implement increased protections for individuals and communities that are vulnerable to climate displacement and ensure mitigation of impacts on the social, emotional, economic and spiritual wellbeing of all people through complementary regional, national and international policies;
4. Facilitate, implement and fund just transition for all countries and communities affected by climate change with particular emphasis on providing and maintaining high quality, resilient digital infrastructure to support the continuity of educational and social programmes during disruptions arising from human-induced climate emergencies;
5. Implement fully funded education programmes in the community and schools on the underlying human causes of the global climate emergency and how governments, communities and individuals can action significant, sustainable interventions to limit the underlying factors causing human-induced global temperature increases.

20. Encourage member organisations to:

1. Develop internal structural responses to the human-induced climate emergency including the implementation of sustainable practices to contribute to the global efforts to limit temperature rises;
2. Develop additional, contextualised materials to support the work of teachers and education support professionals in educating students for a sustainable future;
3. Engage in social dialogue within their own jurisdictions to further the goals of the international community to mitigate human-induced climate emergencies;
4. Advocate for national governments to participate in international legal processes, including access to the International Court of Justice, to hold the international community to account for promises made and promises broken with respect to loss and damage, adaptation and just transition linked to human-induced climate emergencies;
5. Connect union renewal and capacity building to the work of the global trade union movement to engage in social dialogue to realise a sustainable future;
6. Embrace diversity and inclusion in their structures and operational processes, and in their advocacy for policies and programmes that respond to the human-induced climate emergency by recognising and promoting inclusion and diversity;
7. Develop proposals and policies that make schools places of reflection and concrete action on environmental issues, including how the school is built, how it purchases, consumes, recycles, and disposes of materials;

21. Urgently seek and develop coalitions with relevant partners at a national and international level in support of action to address human-induced climate emergencies.