Commentary: Young People & Climate Change

In this commentary, we will take a concept from the environmental health/climate science field and apply it to the realms of psychological health. In a paper published in Nature in 2009, Rockstrom, Steffen et. al. defined the planetary boundaries supporting life on earth as ‘safe operating spaces’.

https://www.nature.com/articles/461472a

Adapting this framework, the question we could pose is: how can we define a ‘safe operating space’ for young people in an era of environmental threats? Subsidiary questions could include: how can we measure and map this safe operating space (SOS) for youth? How do we protect and support young people to remain in/enter this SOS? What protective or remedial interventions do we need to address climate-related distress in youth populations?

Safe Operating Spaces for Youth in Australia

The Australian Treasurer, Dr Jim Chalmers, recently stated (September, 2023): “The pressure of a changing climate and more frequent natural disasters is constant, cascading, and cumulative.” In the last several years, New South Wales has experienced waves of natural disasters, including extreme fires in 2019-20 and riverine flooding in 2021-22. Disaster recovery costs increased by 433% during this time – to $2.5 billion. A recent report, Gross Domestic Climate Risk, (2023), by the Cross Dependency Initiative (XDI), found that three Australian states – Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland – are ranked highest within the Aggregated Damage Ratio Analysis in the Oceania region (defined by exposure to extreme weather hazards). The Climate Council (Huntley et.al., 2022) asserts that the federal jurisdictions of Richmond (NSW), Brisbane (Qld) and Griffith (Qld) are among the ten locations that will face extreme climate disaster risks by 2030. In Richmond, the main towns include Ballina, Brunswick Heads, Byron Bay, Kingscliff, Lennox Head, Mullumbimby and Tweed Heads. The future impacts of climate change in North Coast NSW are expected to include increases in temperature, life-threatening fire weather, and more severe storms (Government of NSW, 2023).

Indeed, Australia faces three interlinked crises: a climate crisis; a biodiversity crisis; and a youth mental health crisis (McGorry, Coghill and Berk, 2023; Legge, Rumpff, Garnett and Woinarski, 2023). The mental health of young people in adolescence and early adulthood is a major concern globally, due to the high and increasing prevalence of mental health problems at this time of life (Rickwood, McEachran, Saw, Telford, Trethowan and McGorry, 2023). According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW, 2022), mental health conditions, substance use disorders, and self-inflicted injuries, constituted the greatest burden of disease in young people aged 15–24 in 2022. Anxiety was the leading cause in young women, and suicide and self-inflicted injuries were the leading cause in young men. The National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing (NSMHWB) found that 20% of people aged 16–34 experienced high or very high psychological distress, and young women (26%) were more likely to experience high or very high psychological distress than young men (14%) (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2022). For the period 2020-2022, younger people, aged 16–34 years with a 12-month mental disorder, were more likely to have accessed services for their mental health by mobile phone, internet, or another digital technology than people aged 35–64 years (18.2% compared with 12.0%). The most recent ABS data (released in 2023) indicates that almost 40% of young people aged 16 to 24 experienced a mental health disorder in the previous year. Young women were particularly affected, with nearly half (45.5 per cent) experiencing a mental health condition in the previous 12 months, with anxiety being the most common complaint. Importantly, people who described themselves as gay, lesbian, or bisexual had nearly three times the rate of mental health disorders compared to their heterosexual counterparts. Outside metropolitan areas, access to mental health services via in-person appointments remains a challenge. The recent evaluation report of the Better Access Initiative (Pirkis, Currier, Harris and Mihalopoulos, 2022) found that utilization of psychological services is increasing among people living in metropolitan areas, although affordability is becoming an issue. The report recommended that mental health services could be provided by a broader range of healthcare providers, and could be delivered in a variety of formats, including via digital services (see the National Safety and Quality Digital Mental Health Standards from the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care, 2022). Following the Mental Health Equity and Access Forum, convened in January, 2023, by the Department of Health and Aged Care, the Australian government announced an investment of $8.5 million to support those with lived experience of mental illness. The main objective of this investment is the development of policies and programs to support these individuals and their families. The Federal Government budget for 2023-24 included a package of funds totaling $586.9 million to support the mental health and suicide prevention system.

A National Youth Mental Health Survey conducted by Headspace (2023) found strong evidence of anxiety about extreme weather events, and climate change, among the more than 3000 young respondents surveyed. The survey of young people aged between 18-25 years found that distress over climate change (often called ‘climate anxiety’ or ‘eco-anxiety’) was reported by over 20% of respondents. Over half of the young people reported fear of the future due to the impacts of climate change. Over 40% were worried that their life opportunities would be curtailed by climate change. Substantial levels of climate anxiety have been reported among young people in Australia, and globally (Crandon et. al, 2022). Deep concern and, indeed, anxiety, about climate change is prevalent among young people in many jurisdictions (Hickman et. al., 2021, Whitlock, 2023), and has led to public protests (e.g. school strikes for climate/Fridays for Future) and even lawsuits (e.g. Juliana v United States, 2023). Climate anxiety is a complex phenomenon but is regarded as a rational response to an existential threat. Given that young people have little influence over socio-economic systems and are still developing the psychological capacities to cope with this anxiety, they are especially vulnerable to the mental health impacts of climate change and extreme weather events (Clayton, Manning, Krygsman and Speiser, 2017). Councillor Elly Bird of Lismore City Council recently noted (in Gergis, Blashki, Gardner, and Bradshaw, 2023, p. III), “The mental health toll of worsening and more frequent climate disasters in Australia is an extremely urgent issue.”