In the Asia-Pacific region, the impacts of the climate emergency are acutely felt by teachers and education support personnel, both as essential workers and as members of communities that are unjustly enmeshed in the cycle of disasters and crises.

Hydroclimatic extremes, such as typhoons and heat waves, are inflicting destruction on education infrastructures, most of which are ill-equipped to deal with such intense shocks. Damages incurred via calamities are causing schools to shutter, classes to adapt to ever-shifting academic calendars, and students to lag behind. Among the region’s island nations, the education sector is facing rising sea levels that threaten to wipe out not only schools but also entire populations. Without decisive policy actions, climate change will reverse humanity’s progress on many fronts, including education.

In line with its E4SD: Educators for Sustainable Development campaign, Education International Asia-Pacific (EIAP) continues to call on governments and EI member organisations to put climate change education on their policy and advocacy agendas and to mobilise for a just transition to a more sustainable world. In 2022, EIAP expanded on these demands at its 9th Regional Conference, with the theme “Rebuilding the Asia-Pacific: Educators and their unions at the forefront towards a sustainable future.” EIAP affiliates and collaborators accepted a mandate “emphasising that the dimensions of and pathways to sustainable development do not exist in silos and are instead thematically interconnected with the different areas of work on which education unions in the Asia-Pacific region generally focus their advocacy and partnership efforts.”

At the same regional conference, EIAP member organisations adopted a resolution on the climate crisis that encompassed broader commitments to advancing climate justice in the education sector (Table 1).

EIAP affiliates are enjoined to follow through with different campaigns, projects, and initiatives toward sustainable development, including actions to mainstream climate justice. Within their countries and sub-regions, however, education unions may vastly differ in their needs and priorities, level of concern and interest, and capacity to integrate climate justice work into their labour union agendas. Therefore, a baseline assessment is the first step toward strategising how and where education unions in the Asia-Pacific region can uniquely position themselves within the climate justice discourse, with particular consideration to their various sociocultural and political-economic contexts.

To this end, this study seeks to identify the advocacy and capacity-building needs of EIAP affiliates where the advancement of climate justice is concerned and where climate change education and just transition matters are spotlighted. Our objective is two-fold: (1) to assess the baseline knowledge of EIAP members regarding climate science, justice and policy; and (2) to gather their insights on and recommendations for developing, facilitating, and implementing climate justice policies and measures in schools, trade unions, and beyond.

The findings of this study also serve a programmatic function as they will help pinpoint knowledge gaps and advocacy areas to be targeted and addressed by EIAP’s climate justice programme. By “knowledge gaps,” we refer broadly to topics in climate science, justice and policy where most educators and education unionists in the Asia-Pacific show misperception, uncertainty, or a complete lack of information or familiarity. By helping unions locate the nexus between climate justice and education, this study hopes to encourage conversations among education unions in the region to reaffirm their abiding commitment, as part of the broader trade union movement, of building a just and equitable world for workers and their communities.