Education in international climate pledges – identifying education framings in countries nationally determined contributions (NDCs)

Abstract

Although education is acknowledged as an important tool to address climate change, only some countries refer to education within their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Using a mixed-methods approach, we explore the question of how countries frame education within their climate pledges. First, we examine NDCs with a discourse network analysis (DNA) to identify country framings of education and climate change and potential discourse coalitions among countries. Education is most often referred to as an instrument to adapt to climate change and to a lesser extent as an instrument to mitigate climate change. Second, we use a regression analysis to complement the DNA results. We find that countries with a higher exposure to climate change impacts are more likely to mention education, which explains the prevalence of the adaptation framing. Moreover, we find that countries with a higher GDP per capita are less likely to include education within their NDCs. These results confirm the traditional divide between Annex 1 and non-Annex 1 countries also with regard to education in NDCs.