‘Climate anxiety affects half of world’s youth’

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Climate anxiety is gripping nearly half of the world’s youth, who, while motivated to take action and help save the planet, are hindered depending on where they live, according to a recent global study that looked into how climate change is hurting people’s mental health.

The study, “Climate anxiety, well-being and pro-environmental action” recently published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, sought to take the broadest look at climate anxiety among over 10,000 university students in 32 countries including the Philippines.

Generally, climate anxiety is understood as the psychological distress—fear, shame, guilt, worry, hopelessness and despair—caused by the environment and climate crisis on people.

Youth extremely worried

Overall, they found that almost half of the young people surveyed felt “very” or “extremely” worried about climate change. Nearly a quarter felt “terrified,” and even more felt either “very” or “extremely” anxious.

In the Philippines, the number is higher: 63 percent of the 1,418 respondents felt “extremely worried,” while 44.5 percent felt “very or extremely terrified.”

They found that climate anxiety is directly related to the amount of attention people pay to climate news: not just the sheer volume of media exposure, but “the content of the information and the amount of attention people pay to it …”

Information about climate change impacts also appears more strongly linked to climate anxiety than information about climate change solutions.

Unable to do anything about climate change

More significantly, the study found that the ability to do something about it depends on where they live. While anxiety can drive people to adopt pro-environmental behavior, this is largely confined to Western, democratic and relatively affluent countries.

In contrast, people in the Global South or authoritarian countries could be unable to engage in climate action due to financial or political barriers, having insufficient knowledge, or simply lacking opportunities irrespective of how they feel about climate change.

For example, only a dismal 5.1 percent of the Filipino respondents have attended climate protests or engaged in climate activism even though the country is one of the most vulnerable to climate impacts.

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