As part of the Green Education Partnership Roadmap, the Emirati Ministry of Education (MoE) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have joined forces to launch the ‘Greening Capacities Initiative’. This initiative will enhance the climate education and action of children and youth, enabling them to cope with and respond to the impacts of climate change. The MoE-UNICEF strategic partnership focuses on ‘Greening Capacities’, one of the four pillars of the roadmap that the ministry unveiled last April, along with ‘Greening Learning’, ‘Greening Schools’, and ‘Greening Communities’.

The partnership will implement three joint programs: Educators Training, Net Zero Heroes, and the Children’s Art Competition. These programs aim to empower students and educators to deal with climate change and work towards a better environmental future. The Ministry of Education also intends to equip every learner with the knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes to address climate change and promote sustainable development. This will be done through professional development for every teacher and school principal in the UAE, in collaboration with UNICEF. Additionally, both parties will provide children with the opportunity to express their views before COP28 through these programs.

The details and outcomes of these initiatives will be announced by the Ministry of Education and UNICEF before COP28. The Green Education Roadmap, through its four pillars, outlined environment-and-climate-friendly initiatives that the ministry aims to achieve by the start of COP28. For example, the ministry will make 50 percent of all the UAE’s schools and campuses green accredited; and train more than 2,800 educators and 1,400 principals. Moreover, the first Education Hub in the history of COP will be established in COP28.