Keya Khandaker of Plan International told CG about the research documenting the lives of girls in Benin, Brazil, Cambodia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, the Philippines, Togo, Uganda, and Vietnam.
The report "Real Choices, Real Lives" reflects the accounts of girls and their caregivers, providing insights on a broad range of subjects, from gender norms to health care, education, and climate change. Released in late February, it is the culmination of an 18-year study led by the humanitarian organization Plan International. Researchers documented the lives of 142 girls, from birth to adulthood, in Benin, Brazil, Cambodia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, the Philippines, Togo, Uganda, and Vietnam.
The topics of education and climate change come together in Section 11 of the report. The co-authors documented children missing school following extreme weather events when infrastructural damage closed school buildings or made roads impassable. Schooling was also strained by hits to local economies. When rising temperatures caused crops to suffer, families sometimes struggled to pay school and transportation-related costs.
"As mothers take on additional paid work to cope with livelihood losses, girls are expected to assume greater unpaid care responsibilities at home, while boys are rarely asked to do the same," Research Manager Keya Khandaker told CG via email. "The climate crisis is reinforcing gender inequality and risks setting back years of progress in girls' education and protection. It shouldn't be portrayed solely as an environmental issue."
The compounding effects of rising global temperatures don't end there. PAI President and Chief Executive Officer Nabeeha Kazi Hutchins spoke with Climate One last week about the chain reaction that extreme weather can set off in girls' lives.
"There's research by the U.N. that shows when girls are not in school, their chances for unintended pregnancies increase exponentially. Child marriage increases exponentially," Kazi Hutchins told the radio program.
CG followed up with Kazi Hutchins to learn more.
"Schools are intended to be protective spaces, and when climate disasters shut them down, girls are far more likely to be pulled into domestic labor or forced into decisions, such as child marriage, that permanently derail their education," she wrote via email. "Climate shocks, in other words, can reshape a girl's entire life trajectory."
With education understood as one potential protection for girls' safety, rights, and opportunities, Plan International's report recommends gender- and age-sensitive disaster planning as well as efforts to make school infrastructure more resilient to extreme weather and to speed up the repairs that can keep kids out of school.
But it also urges stronger climate education, including "green" skill-building to enable active leadership in ongoing community efforts and perhaps even future economic opportunities tied to emerging sectors like renewable energy.
"In countries where girls' schooling combines lessons on climate change and green skills with after-school clubs or safe spaces to put those skills into practice, girls are eager and enthusiastic to engage in climate activities," Khandaker told CG. "These spaces are often the only places where girls can formally contribute to bettering their communities, and their participation makes a huge difference."
Kazi Hutchins also emphasized the total value of investing in climate solutions that have the potential to protect girls.
"If we are serious about climate resilience, we must treat the health, safety, and rights of girls as essential infrastructure," she told CG, "not an afterthought."
"We are actively recruiting partners to do this across the United States," the organization's senior campaigner, Kelley Dennings, told CG.
"While it's too early to conclude anything from this data — like that microplastics are involved in prostate cancer development — nevertheless, I think it is still scary that they're in so many prostates," study lead author Stacy Loeb told the Urology Times.
Some groups have raised concerns that per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, may be used in the cooling process and later flushed into wastewater systems. Exposure to some "forever chemicals" has been linked with serious conditions, including certain reproductive health issues.
Olubusayo Ruth Akinola — Head of the Social Welfare, Drug Control, and Crime Prevention Division of the Union — exchanged emails with CG following the release of a new report from the African Union.
