The World Above 1.5°C: Flooding Disasters from Libya to Hong Kong

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Polar Tipping Points Hub in WEF Global Collaboration Village

This week, the Polar Tipping Points Hub was launched in the Global Collaboration Village, a metaverse built by the World Economic Forum in partnership with Accenture and Microsoft, with scientific support from Arctic... READ MORE

Arctic Basecamp Plays Significant Role in New Polar Metaverse by World Economic Forum

The World Economic Forum (WEF) launched the Polar Tipping Points Hub, a groundbreaking virtual reality experience in collaboration with Accenture and Microsoft, yesterday at UN Climate Week in New York... READ MORE

Mind-blowing alarm bells need to be ringing: Antarctica’s ice remains well-below any previous record

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A rare northern hurricane continues to make records

Hurricane Lee is preparing to slam into northern New England and the Canadian... READ MORE

COUNTDOWN

CO2 Budget Depletion

UN SUSTAINABILITY DEVELOPMENT GOALS

SDG 4 - QUALITY EDUCATION

 

A warming Arctic is linked with stronger storms. Extreme rainfall is associated with poorer cognitive ability, lower rates of school enrolment and increases in child labour. The Arctic increases the risk of heatwaves, and heat-exposed students are less likely to receive quality education. Access to quality education is a longterm struggle in many Arctic communities. 

GLOBAL

Extreme weather events disrupt access to quality education, thereby reducing academic outcomes. Extreme weather events exacerbated by Arctic warming can lead to loss of education material and infrastructure, injury or death of students and teachers, and psychosocial stress.  

 Worldwide, children from the wealthiest households are five times more likely than children from the poorest households to finish primary school (Randell and Grey, 2019). The warming Arctic is intrinsically linked with more powerful monsoons and global heating around the world. In countries such as Vietnam, Zimbabwe and Burkina Faso, such extreme rainfall has been linked to poorer cognitive ability, lower rates of school enrollment and increases in child labor (Ibid.). Elsewhere, heat-exposed students are less likely to receive quality education. Park et al., (2020) document the negative impact of higher temperatures on student testing.

ARCTIC

Throughout history, the educational systems across the Arctic nations were central to assimilating Indigenous People, largely through erasing their cultural and linguistic practices. In Canada, over 1.000 unmarked Indigenous children’s graves have been found on the lands of former residential schools. Today few qualified teachers, high staff turnover, lack of infrastructure and long commutes contribute to poor quality of education and low school attendance rates in the Arctic. Only 39 percent of the Nunavut population completes high school, dramatically lower than the Canadian average of 78.3 percent (Rodon et al., 2014). 

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ARCTIC RISK INDICATORS

The following gauges show up-to-date data regarding key indicators in the Arctic. These indicators clearly point to the crisis at hand.

Greenland rate of ice loss
13 million l/s
on average
13 million tonnes/s
on average
Arctic Sea Ice Extent
2,161,499 km²
below 1981-2010 average on 20-Sep-2023
834,555 mi²
below 1981-2010 average on 20-Sep-2023
Arctic Amplification
4 times
faster than global average
Arctic 66N+ Wildfire emissions
24,865.56 megatonnes CO₂e
CO₂e emissions in 2023 so far
Arctic Air Quality (PM2.5)
4.66 microgram per cubic meter
on 22-Sep-2023
Global mean Sea Level
3.4mm/year
since 1993