The Zurich-Mandala Climate Risk Index: The impact of climate change on Australia's schools

Two thirds of schools in Australia face high climate risk.

For the first time, the Zurich-Mandala Climate Risk Index has been used to analyse the risk of climate change to 9,829 primary and secondary schools across Australia.

The index uses IPCC climate modelling along with Zurich's proprietary climate impact assessments to understand the unique risks faced by individual schools.

Extreme heat is projected to reduce writing, spelling, grammar & punctuation, and numeracy by over 7% in some parts of the country by 2060, with students in the Northern Territory and Queensland disproportionately impacted.

Two-thirds of schools in Australia currently face high climate risk. This is set to increase to 84% of schools by 2060 under an intermediate climate scenario with 2 degrees Celsius of warming. Australian students are projected to experience 34 annual heatwave days by 2060.

Australian schools play a critical role in education and development. Australia’s primary and secondary education system supports over four million students and close to 350,000 teaching staff across nearly 10,000 schools.

Nearly half (45%) of schools are located in a regional or remote area and close to 35% of students attend a school categorised as having low ‘Socio-Educational Advantage’ (being within the lowest five deciles) compared with other schools in Australia.

The disparities evident between schools in Australia have been further exacerbated in recent years following major disruptions such as the global pandemic and climate change related weather events.

The latter, including heatwaves, bushfires and floods, can see schools closed for long periods of time, infrastructure destroyed, displacement of children and their families, reduced cognitive ability & function in students, impacts to student and teacher mental health, and reduced future employment outcomes and earning capacity.

With almost two thirds of children attending a government funded school, there is significant pressure on governments to support both mitigation and recovery efforts in the face of an increasingly volatile climate risk environment.

Key findings:

NSW and QLD have the highest volume of schools facing high climate risk

92% of schools in NSW and 91% of schools in QLD are in the highest three risk categories. The ACT and NT follow closely behind.

Disadvantaged schools face higher climate risk

Over 80% of Australian schools in the lowest Socio-Educational Advantage decile face significant climate risk, compared to around 60% of schools in the highest advantage decile.

Extreme heat could reduce academic attainment by over 7%

in parts of Australia by 2060. The NT and QLD are most severely impacted, particularly for numeracy scores.

Extreme heat could impact the lifetime earnings of students by $73,000

due to reduction in academic attainment. This is equivalent to losing one year’s average salary in Australia.

Read the full report here.