Hopeful climate engagement may reduce mental health distress

Climate worry is associated with depressive and anxiety symptoms among Finns of all ages. However, these symptoms are less common among individuals whose climate-related hope is combined with various forms of action, such as volunteering, following a plant‑based diet or avoiding air travel. Hope that society is capable of mitigating climate change is also associated with fewer depressive and anxiety symptoms.

Conducted among more than 5,000 Finnish adults, the study examined the associations of climate worry, efficacy-based climate hope and climate action with mental health, namely depressive and anxiety symptoms.

Commitment to climate action, together with climate hope, can be a constructive way for individuals to channel their climate worry and climate anxiety. They can protect individuals' mental health and support their agency amid the climate crisis.

For this reason, it is important for individuals to have more genuine opportunities to influence climate change mitigation. We need clear information about which climate actions are genuinely impactful and how different people can get involved."

Veera Nieminen, doctoral researcher at the University of Eastern Finland and lead author of the study

It is also essential that society as a whole commits to effective climate action. Such commitment supports not only efforts to mitigate climate change and safeguard planetary wellbeing but also individuals' mental health.

"Mitigating the climate crisis cannot be left to individuals. However, societal structures and reforms must be designed in a way that creates a solid foundation for meaningful action at the individual level."

The climate crisis is also a mental health crisis. As climate change progresses, we need greater understanding of its impacts on mental health, and of ways to support mental health amid the climate crisis.

"Investing in climate agency and effective climate actions could simultaneously ease the mental health impacts of the climate crisis and strengthen the kind of behavioral commitment that societies in the global North will, in any case, need," Nieminen concludes.