Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, with reference to the findings of Project Drawdown in 2017 on reversing global warming, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of educating girls and providing access to family planning to reduce atmospheric CO2 levels by over 100 gigatonnes by 2050.

We are familiar with the Project Drawdown report and recognise the strong links between our work on girls’ education, gender, and tackling climate change, and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Coping with climate change is a challenge that faces us all and it is having wide ranging effects on economies, livelihoods, access to education and natural resources. The poorest communities, and girls and women within them, are likely to be hardest hit, which is why we are investing in building the resilience of the world’s poorest by doubling our International Climate Finance. This has helped 57 million people cope with the effects of climate change since 2011.

The UK is firmly committed to working to ensure that all girls have access to twelve years of quality education. This access is significantly impacted by climate change. Girls are often the first to be taken out of school when climate affects livelihoods and household food security. Girls and women can also be powerful agents of change, at political, community and household level. For example, women in developing countries currently play critical roles in supplying and managing household energy which means they can make a significant contribution to the uptake of solid fuel alternatives and sustainable energy solutions. Indeed, educating women and girls has been described as one of the ‘best climate change disaster prevention investments’ both because educated women are better able to adapt their homes and livelihoods to climate extremes and because the evidence suggests that when a girl has an education, she marries later, has better employment and fewer children, who are healthier and better educated.