Climate change and mental health: our policy perspective

This short policy summary is part of a series setting out the major changes that are needed to improve mental health in the UK.

As climate change intensifies, the question of its impact on our mental health has become more urgent in recent years. Mitigating the consequences of climate change has been a part of the Mental Health Foundation’s work including hosting a discussion event at the COP26 summit in Glasgow, as well as publishing a report on how connecting with nature can benefit our mental health.¹

Content

• What is climate anxiety?
• Direct impacts of climate change on mental health
• Policy recommendations
• Other issues

Worry and stress are natural responses to a concern about the current state of the planet. When anxiety becomes unmanageable in individuals, it may warrant social and psychological interventions, but the root cause of the problem is the situation itself – climate breakdown, and all that will be lost as a result of it.

The ultimate solution to climate anxiety is addressing climate change itself. There are important steps that governments and local authorities can take to mitigate climate anxiety, but they must complement efforts to prevent climate change itself, accepting that worrying about the planet is a normal human response to a catastrophic situation.

Surveys suggest that in the UK, the worsening climate situation has led to many people experiencing climate anxiety, which has been defined as ‘distress about climate change and its impacts to our ecosystems, the environment, and human health and well-being‘.²  It is particularly common in children and young people.

In England, polling of its members by the Royal College of Psychiatrists found that 57% of child and adolescent psychiatrists were working with patients who were distressed about environmental and ecological issues in 2020.³

Efforts to address climate anxiety must acknowledge that despite it being a natural response, people who are struggling with it nonetheless may require support, and that as a form of stress, particularly during childhood, it can exacerbate or lead to more serious mental health problems.

Taking part in action to address climate change can actively improve our wellbeing, though. A meta-analysis of 78 studies found a strong correlation between people's pro-environmental behaviours and their level of wellbeing.⁴ 
 

It is likely that the UK will not suffer the same level of environmental breakdown that will affect other countries, particularly those in the global south, at least in the short term. But we will be affected by increased levels of flooding, and by heatwaves.⁵

The mental health effects of floods are significant, with one UK study of flooded households showing that 20% of participants who had been flooded had probable depression, 28.3% had probable anxiety and 36% had probable PTSD at one year.⁶  

International research draws a link between heat waves and intimate partner violence including femicide⁷ and there is also emerging evidence on the risk of suicide and temperature: the World Health Organisation states that ‘rising ambient temperatures have been linked to increased suicide rates in many countries’.⁸

Mortality amongst people with mental illness has been shown to be higher during hot weather⁹ and psychiatric symptoms appear to be exacerbated in patients being nursed in hot buildings.¹⁰  

Mentally healthier adaptation measures

As the impacts of climate change intensify, towns and cities will need to adapt to increasing temperatures and unpredictable weather. This can take a variety of forms, some of which are energy intensive (for example, increasing the use of air-conditioning) and others which are carbon-neutral or even negative. Examples of this are the use of tree cover to provide shade, and developing and improving access to natural environments which people can use for respite from increasingly uncomfortable urban environments. 

Risks to mental health from climate change policies

The only way to prevent climate change from worsening is to move to net zero economies. Like any other economic change, though, this can be handled in ways that support people’s mental health and wellbeing or damages them. We need to create what has been called a ‘just transition’, otherwise we are likely to deepen existing inequalities.¹¹ For example, as jobs in polluting industries decline, thought must be given to how individuals and communities affected can be supported to thrive.

Planning for mental health and climate change prevention

The government must introduce plans that connect its action on mental health and climate change. Both are cross-government issues, with enough inter-related components that they cannot be produced in silos.

• The UK government should introduce a 10-year, cross-government mental health and wellbeing plan: the government, or any future governments must develop and deliver a 10-year, cross-government mental health and wellbeing plan which includes the mental health impacts of climate-change mitigation. 
• UK governments should take a “Just Transition” approach: a Just Transition Commission has been developed in Scotland,¹² and in Wales the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act  requires public bodies decisions to be guided by sustainability, wellbeing and fairness. Other jurisdictions should seek to learn from good practice within the UK in order to ensure that moving to a more sustainable future does not entrench existing inequalities, or create new ones. 

Working in Schools

There is much that can be done in schools to tackle climate anxiety and help to build a sustainable future. The following action is needed:

• Teaching solutions to climate change in schools: climate anxiety and climate change can be tackled together, through supporting young people to act. The most effective coping styles for children are those which involve taking part in ‘hopeful action’.¹³ Education departments should work with schools to encourage teaching about the solutions to climate change, with appropriate focus on hope. This should explain how children and young people can engage in and influence political systems to help achieve this. One way of doing this is supporting children to engage in collective action through school-based programmes.
• A whole school-approach to climate change: many in the mental health sector have long advocated for a ‘whole-school approach’ to mental health; that is, one where it is integrated into the roles of all staff and across the curriculum. This approach is also supported by the DfE and NICE.¹⁴ Wales already has a ‘whole-school approach' to emotional and mental wellbeing which is being led by Public Health Wales and it is currently in its implementation phase.¹⁵ This could both provide a useful template for similar programmes across the rest of the UK but also be expanded upon to include overlapping issues such as climate change and its impact on mental health in schools.¹⁶ The identification and implementation of appropriate mechanisms to integrate mental health into climate change education will require direction from central government to address the often-siloed approach seen in schools.  In particular, positive recent developments, such as training senior mental health leads and expanding access to early mental health support, will be less effective if they do not include a recognition of climate anxiety.

Training the mental health workforce

Mental health professionals should be equipped with the skills to deal with climate anxiety. Young people  have reported mental health professionals invalidating young people’s feelings on this topic,¹⁷ and there is a role for providers of counselling/psychological/psychiatric education and professional bodies to ensure that practitioners understand this emerging field and are prepared to deal with it in their practice.

New Research and Data

The impacts of a changing climate on mental health is an emerging field of study and we need to understand the impacts of climate change better in a UK context. This requires:

• Mapping the relationship between flooding, extreme heat and mental health so that local government can develop effective plans to support people most at-risk in their communities, in line with World Health Organization recommendations.
• Research on the relationship between extreme temperatures and suicide, exacerbated psychiatric symptoms and increased mortality, and also intimate partner violence.

Addressing Flood Risk

Local authorities should be supported to prevent and address the impacts of flooding, acknowledging the increased costs they will bear that come with greater severity and frequency. This should build on the government’s existing flooding health guidance and advice.¹⁹

Creating Healthier Environments

Mental health is created in the environments we live in, and mentally healthier environments will often be lower carbon environments. Local authorities should:

• Enable walking and cycling: transport infrastructure should encourage safe, pleasant routes for cycling and walking, helping people to realise the mental health benefits of exercise²⁰ whilst travelling without a significant carbon footprint.
• Plant trees: one part of plans to move to net zero economies should involve mass planting (including tree cover in urban areas) and rewilding. Such programmes can help to tackle climate change and the decline in biodiversity. Delivered in the right ways for the right communities, they can also help people’s mental health, given the well-evidenced link between access to nature and mental health.²¹
• Support relevant social projects: initiatives such as the Resilience Project provide spaces for young people to get together and support one another in dealing with climate anxiety.²² They also empower young people to become effective leaders in the climate movement. Projects such as this can help young people feel less isolated and make positive change within their local community.    

This briefing does not cover every element of policy that impacts mental health and climate change. Specifically, it does cover the role of good, well insulated housing, decarbonising the NHS or the important inter-related issues of air pollution, mental health and climate change. These topics are outside of MHF’s expertise.