Climate Disruptions Hit Schools as NELD Ignored at COP30

Children and youth engaging at COP.

Jyoti Kumari missed her online classes again today. Her father, a vegetable seller in West Delhi’s wholesale market, had to go to work, taking with him the only smartphone the family owns. Jyoti has been attending online classes since 11 November, when the state government shut all elementary schools after air pollution reached the “severe” category.

A class five student in a government school, she relies entirely on her father’s phone to join lessons. But her class hours overlap with his work schedule, causing the 10-year-old to miss her studies regularly.

She represents a growing trend in India—children losing school days due to extreme weather events linked to climate change.

“Their schools close several times during peak summer because of heatwaves, and shutting down due to air pollution in October and November has become common in recent years. Now winter is coming, and they will close again when the temperature drops sharply,” said her father, Devendra Kumar.

In a country that has made significant progress in girls’ education over the past decade, repeated disruptions caused by climatic events threaten to slow or even reverse those gains. School closures, combined with poverty and loss of income during extreme weather, put girls like Jyoti at increased risk of child marriage.

Delhi’s Air Quality Index has remained between the “very poor” (300–400) and “severe” (400+) categories since last week. Since 11 November, following school closures, the government has imposed stage three of the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP), banning nonessential construction and industrial activity. Civil rights groups and university students have been protesting, demanding urgent measures to improve the capital’s toxic air.

But Jyoti, who dreams of becoming a scientist, struggles to understand the restrictions and worries only about missing her classes.

A UNICEF report released earlier this year said climate-related extreme events disrupted education for 54.7 million students in India in 2024 alone. “April saw the highest global climate-related school disruptions, with heatwaves impacting at least 118 million children in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, the Philippines, and Thailand,” the report said. It added that rapid-onset hazards like cyclones and landslides damage school buildings, while environmental stressors such as air pollution and extreme heat hinder attendance.

Against this backdrop, world leaders have gathered in Belém for the 30th Conference of the Parties, the world’s largest climate negotiation platform. Decisions taken there directly affect children like Jyoti. But by day ten of the summit, it has become clear that non-economic loss and damage (NELD)—a term covering impacts not directly tied to financial loss, including mental health, education, biodiversity, culture, and displacement—is not receiving priority.

While negotiators hold closed-door discussions on climate finance, adaptation targets, and fossil fuels, NELD remains sidelined. It featured in only one side event, where experts underscored its urgency, but it remains largely absent from the main agenda.

“Social impacts of climate change are already worsening, and long-term impacts can stunt education,” said Saqib Huq, Managing Director at the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD). “Within the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage, experts are gathering data on NELD, but we keep hearing that we need more data and more policy. Meanwhile, impacts are escalating.”

Researchers say part of the challenge is that NELD does not fit neatly into financial calculations. Economic losses—such as damaged infrastructure or ruined crops—are easier to quantify and therefore attract funding. But non-economic harms, like disrupted childhoods and interrupted learning, resist traditional evaluation.

For Jyoti, however, the coming days depend not on negotiations in Belém, but on whether Delhi’s pollution level drops enough for her to return to school.