IF YOU’VE SEEN the news headlines this week, you’ll have noticed that one of the largest and most iconic cities in the world, New York, was enveloped and effectively choked by the smoke from a number of Canadian wildfires.

Reacting to the unprecedented scenes, US President Joe Biden declared the wildfires “devastating” and said the blazes were a stark reminder of the impacts of climate change.

Also this week, a team of more than 50 top scientists sounded a fresh warning that greenhouse gas emissions have now reached an “all-time high”. They say that human activities have released around 54 billion metric tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year on average over the last decade.

New York, Ny. 8th June, 2023. Aerial view of the NY Skyline clouded in smoke from the Canada wildfire that hit parts of the US Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

As we continue to hear these warnings of this real and urgent threat to our very existence, it’s hard to have faith that any real and urgent action is being taken at a political level. It’s also difficult to hear the bad news on a regular basis and it can leave us feeling powerless. That bad news is also filtering down to younger people in society, the very ones who will be left with the climate mess caused by the ones who came before.

Who pays the price?

Human-caused climate change presents a significant threat to future generations’ enjoyment of health rights and it is children who often suffer the most.

Recent statistics from the UN estimate 1.7 million children lose their lives annually as a result of avoidable environmental impact – and millions more experience disease and the plight of displacement from their homes.

Developed countries are not immune. According to the EU Environmental Agency, air pollution causes over 1,200 child deaths per year across Europe, and significantly increases the risk of disease across the lifespan. Continuing environmental degradation and damage to biodiversity negatively impact children’s rights the world over, and there is a growing concern amongst psychologists and health researchers that children’s mental health has begun to suffer, and will do so for decades to come.

Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Collectively, these effects on child and adolescent socio-emotional health have been termed ‘Climate Anxiety’. Climate anxiety is defined by how we may perceive, fear, or dread environmental threats via anxiety and worry.

Managing climate anxiety

Recently, my colleagues in the Psychological Society of Ireland (PSI) and I submitted a new report to the UN that explores the role climate anxiety plays in child and adolescent well-being.

From a legal perspective, experiencing Climate Anxiety is at odds with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) – specifically, that is, the child’s right to the highest attainable standard of health (art. 24).

The report sets out ways we can better inform legal thinking around children’s rights and mental health suffering by leading with the latest psychological science research.

Our submission to the UN documented research highlighting how Climate Anxiety symptoms can include negative thinking, restlessness, panic, sleep and even digestive disturbance.

A global study of climate anxiety in children and young people found it resulted in excessive worrying, disturbed sleep patterns and a negative impact on study and family relationships. Other studies showed children across a range of ages readily communicate their understanding of the threat climate change presents.

Our submission showed children and adolescents are aware of the peril climate change presents to their life and future; they recognise the real psychological, physiological and social threat to their environment and the future it poses.

Children’s mental health can be shaped by many factors, including poverty, food security/nutrition, neighbourhood/community, and trauma. Climate change affects these factors and their thoughts and feelings for their future safety and security in an increasingly health-averse and resource-stressed world.

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Giving them choice

Children tend to become brand aware from the age of 9-11 years and their influence on parents’ purchase decisions is well documented. Highlighting their choices as consumers is one way every family can empower children and adolescents to offset climate anxiety.

Research cited in the submission made by the PSI’s Special Interest Group in Human Rights shows that children who are knowledgeable about their human rights, and have their views taken into account, rate measurably higher on well-being indicators than those who do not.

Here’s how you can help your children build their resilience and effect real change:

• Introduce climate change education and resources at primary and secondary school age – make children aware of their health rights and the environment; encourage dialogue about climate change and nature, experiment with growing your own food in window boxes.

• Promote consumer empowerment and environmentally-friendly and healthy consumer choices – spend time with children doing online research before the weekly grocery shop, finding out the most eco-friendly options for one product per week; learn how to identify and use eco-labels; discuss issues around greenwashing and its consequences for the environment.

• Encourage your children to raise their concerns and discuss their consumer choices with you; help them find the best ways to research eco-friendly options.

For more about these recommendations read the full report submitted to the OHCHR here. The news around climate change and loss of biodiversity is not getting any easier to digest, for any of us, but there are ways to make changes that make some difference. Those small changes can feed back to the children in our lives and help alleviate their very genuine fears of what is to come.

Dr Michelle Cowley-Cunningham is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the National Centre for Family Business at the School of Business, Dublin City University (DCU).