When access to education matters more than income inequality: a structural equation modelling analysis of climate adaptation and mitigation

This paper aims to assess the effects of the educational level of a country on the climate actions (adaptation and mitigation) that it adopts, and measure the extent to which social inequality, educational quality and access to schooling contribute to such actions. To achieve this aim, the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) technique was applied to a sample of 195 countries from 18 indicators related to education, income inequality, adaptation and mitigation that exist in global databases. The main results are a) the level of education has a positive effect on adaptation (.824) and mitigation (.927) actions; b) inclusion of the quadratic term for educational level further underscores its central importance in explaining mitigation action (.460); c) Likewise, the quadratic effect of income inequality emerges only as a propensity to mitigate carbon emissions (−.140); d) in absolute values, the difficulty of accessing education has an indirect effect (−.721) that is greater than that of educational quality (.302). These results indicate that, in addition to the need to guarantee education for all, countries also need to reduce their inequalities. Furthermore, developing countries should prioritize actions to include children and young people in climate change education initiatives, so that the indirect effects of climate change adaptation are realized, while reducing inequality can help to foster carbon emissions mitigation efforts. The policy implications of this paper are twofold. First, the paper highlights that improving access to education is more impactful than reducing income inequality for climate adaptation and mitigation. Second, policymakers should prioritize expanding educational opportunities, particularly in vulnerable regions, to enhance climate resilience and sustainable practices. Investments in education can drive long-term climate action more effectively than income redistribution alone.