Responding to the Impacts of the Climate Crisis on Children and Youth

Abstract

Climate change poses an urgent threat to future generations. Children are more susceptible to its effects than adults, with immediate and lifelong impacts on their physical and mental health. In addition to having direct experiences of climate impacts, children and youth respond psychologically in troubling ways to their awareness of the climate crisis. Children’s and youth’s needs for support vary across contexts. Climate impacts are generally greater in the developing world (despite the fact that people there are less responsible for causing the crisis), where capacity to prepare for and adapt to the effects is weaker. Hence, we need urgent action on both mitigating climate change and adap..