n 8 September 2024, South Asians celebrated International Literacy Day, but they may not know that their region has made steady progress towards achieving full literacy. The region’s literacy rate for 2022 was 74.19%, a 0.77% increase from 2021. As states in the region continue to build on traditional literacy gains, consistent with their Sustainable Development Goals, they are increasingly realizing that their region is far behind in climate literacy. According to a UNICEF poll, 65% of respondents in South Asia said they learned about climate change in school, but 64% said they didn't understand it or couldn't explain it.
For instance, climate literacy is almost non–existent in Taliban–ruled Afghanistan where the sanctioned militants consider climate disasters to be “God’s wrath,” punishing the sinful. Ignorance aside, Afghanistan is one of the sixth most climate–vulnerable countries in the world. The recent months have seen recurrent climate disasters across the country, decimating impoverished villages filled with fragile mud homes.
From Afghanistan to Sri Lanka, South Asia is the world’s most vulnerable region to the adverse effects of climate change. Extreme climate–related events—heatwaves, storms, floods, fires, and droughts—affect more than half of the region's population every year and continue to burden South Asian countries’ economies. Death and destruction tolls that result from climate disasters are so high in South Asia primarily due to a lack of climate literacy. The region’s impoverished communities, especially those in remote and isolated areas, lack any environmental education about the devastating impact of climate disasters. And thanks to state weakness or absence at the village level, rural communities have hardly adapted to worsening climate disasters—lacking any preparedness to avoid loss of life and livelihoods, including livestock and arable land.
To help address this dire situation, South Asian governments should prioritize climate literacy and education in primary, secondary, and tertiary school curricula, making it mandatory for students to learn about climate change and its impact. Additionally, they should increase budgetary resources for implementing nationwide adaptation programs, safeguarding their vulnerable communities against climate impact.
To adapt to global warming and its worsening impact, the region’s heads of state established the South Asia Cooperative Environment Program (SACEP). In 1981, SACEP had foreseen the inevitable “...severe ecological disequilibrium and the threat of environmental degradation in the region.” SACEP was tasked to coordinate formulation and implementation of regional environmental policies, benefiting all SACEP member–states.
However, SACEP remains under–resourced so far, which is a timely opportunity for multilateral cooperation among its eight member–states to mobilize resources from their own means and global climate funds to fully operationalize SACEP’s agenda. This collective endeavor should enable SACEP to fulfill its mission, which, in part, is to raise regional awareness about environmental degradation and climate impact. In the short– and long–run, this objective can and must be achieved through increased investment in climate literacy and education. Doing so will undoubtedly help secure the future of the whole region.
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Investing in climate literacy will secure the future of South Asia
Buddhist monks on Dambadeniya Maliga Gala, Sri Lanka. South Asia is particularly vulnerable to climate impacts. Photo by K. P. D. Madhuka on Unsplash
September 10, 2024
South Asia is well on its way to achieving full reading literacy, but remains far behind in climate literacy. For a region that is particularly vulnerable to climate impacts, this is a problem, but institutions are in place to help change that, writes Amb. M. Ashraf Haidari.
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n 8 September 2024, South Asians celebrated International Literacy Day, but they may not know that their region has made steady progress towards achieving full literacy. The region’s literacy rate for 2022 was 74.19%, a 0.77% increase from 2021. As states in the region continue to build on traditional literacy gains, consistent with their Sustainable Development Goals, they are increasingly realizing that their region is far behind in climate literacy. According to a UNICEF poll, 65% of respondents in South Asia said they learned about climate change in school, but 64% said they didn't understand it or couldn't explain it.
For instance, climate literacy is almost non–existent in Taliban–ruled Afghanistan where the sanctioned militants consider climate disasters to be “God’s wrath,” punishing the sinful. Ignorance aside, Afghanistan is one of the sixth most climate–vulnerable countries in the world. The recent months have seen recurrent climate disasters across the country, decimating impoverished villages filled with fragile mud homes.
From Afghanistan to Sri Lanka, South Asia is the world’s most vulnerable region to the adverse effects of climate change. Extreme climate–related events—heatwaves, storms, floods, fires, and droughts—affect more than half of the region's population every year and continue to burden South Asian countries’ economies. Death and destruction tolls that result from climate disasters are so high in South Asia primarily due to a lack of climate literacy. The region’s impoverished communities, especially those in remote and isolated areas, lack any environmental education about the devastating impact of climate disasters. And thanks to state weakness or absence at the village level, rural communities have hardly adapted to worsening climate disasters—lacking any preparedness to avoid loss of life and livelihoods, including livestock and arable land.
To help address this dire situation, South Asian governments should prioritize climate literacy and education in primary, secondary, and tertiary school curricula, making it mandatory for students to learn about climate change and its impact. Additionally, they should increase budgetary resources for implementing nationwide adaptation programs, safeguarding their vulnerable communities against climate impact.
To adapt to global warming and its worsening impact, the region’s heads of state established the South Asia Cooperative Environment Program (SACEP). In 1981, SACEP had foreseen the inevitable “...severe ecological disequilibrium and the threat of environmental degradation in the region.” SACEP was tasked to coordinate formulation and implementation of regional environmental policies, benefiting all SACEP member–states.
However, SACEP remains under–resourced so far, which is a timely opportunity for multilateral cooperation among its eight member–states to mobilize resources from their own means and global climate funds to fully operationalize SACEP’s agenda. This collective endeavor should enable SACEP to fulfill its mission, which, in part, is to raise regional awareness about environmental degradation and climate impact. In the short– and long–run, this objective can and must be achieved through increased investment in climate literacy and education. Doing so will undoubtedly help secure the future of the whole region.
