The world is experiencing climate change, although people do not seem to experience and feel it
in the same fashion. Whereas scientific reports show temperature increase and rise in sea level,
climate anxiety shows something more personal that is the suffering experienced by human
beings because of the change in environment and its future implications. According to the
American Psychological Association, climate anxiety, or the so-called eco-anxiety, is persistent
panic about the impending end of the world because of climate change (Clayton et al., 2017).
Examples of related concepts are solastalgia kind of homesickness that can take place when the
environment of the house changes in a way that is irreversible (Albrecht et al., 2007).
Yet, these definitions are mainly of western psychology. Climate anxiety is engaged, understood
and frames different cultural responses throughout the world and is conditioned by history,
religion, social rules and immediate threats on the environment. Learning about these cross
cultural differences is important to psychologists, policy makers and climate communicators who
want to offer culturally sensitive, effective support.
Anxiety about Climate as a shared but culturally constructed reality
Climate anxiety can be present in every population who has knowledge about climate change,
but the tone of feeling and way of coping as well as its rate are different depending on the
setting. In such industrialized countries like Germany and Canada, climate anxiety will likely be
through the lens of anticipatory grief, where fears concern the future generations (Taylor, 2020).
In vulnerable countries like Bangladesh and Kiribati, the level of anxiety might be more focused
on the present related to aspects of certain threats such as floods, crop loss, and displacement
(Kelman, 2015).
In a 2025 meta analysis that reviewed ninety four studies, researchers also concluded that
younger adults, women, those already exposed to climate effects, as well as those who read
frequent news with regard to climate issues, have higher measures of climate anxiety.
Nevertheless, to date, the vast majority of studies have Western origins, creating large gaps in the
data related to the Global South (Carbon Brief, 2025).
Frame Works that inform Climate Anxiety
In the United States, the United Kingdom and Scandinavian countries, where culture is
individualistic, climate change has been regularly presented on the basis of individual
responsibility, including what a person eats, energy consumption or change of style. Within the
so-called collectivist societies (e.g., the Pacific Island and most of the African societies), the
emotional appeal is more collective and driven by common survival and intergenerational
accountability (Markus & Kitayama, 1991).
Others perceive climate change within the perspective of religion or spirituality and consider it a
test or punishment of God or something wrong with this sacred connection that creates a bond
between human and nature (Kurth & Pihkala, 2022). Such beliefs may cushion anxiety by
offering an explanation but they may also worsen anxiety by means of apocalyptic explanations.
According to indigenous knowledge systems, the environmental change is understood in the
context of human nature cycle. Although it does lead to resilience, it may increase the feeling of
grief in cases where ecological loss represents a loss of culture (Whyte, 2017).
Regional and Cultural Case studies
To Inuit people in the arctic region, the melting ice can be seen not only as a problem concerning
environment but also losing the means of travel, food, and identity. According to Cunsolo and
Ellis, this is ecological grief, which is the process of collective mourning (2018). Climate
induced ecosystem change presents a risk to both sacred sites and Dreaming identities and stories
in Aboriginal Australia, which results in an ecologically and spiritually distressing situation.
In the Global North, climate anxiety is usually combined with guilt about personally causing the
crisis (Taylor, 2020). The lack of resources, loss of livelihood, and displacement add to anxiety
in the Global South, which is illustrated by the case of the Pacific Island nations, where the sea
level rise displaces people annually (Kelman, 2015).
Across cultures, youth are suffering significant eco-distress but expressing that in different ways.
In Europe, such a movement as Fridays are Future is based on moral urgency. The Pacific
Climate Warriors of the Pacific Islands associate the culture pride and sovereignty with activism.
Leaders in Africa including Vanessa Nakate consider climate change and poverty coupled with
social justice to be inseparable. A 2023 multi country survey of people between sixteen and
twenty five years of age revealed that there were severe gender and regional variations in climate
concern, as young women in low income countries registered the highest levels (Sustainability,
2023).
Intersectionality and Social Determinants
Sex is also one factor that affects climate anxiety. A study in Portugal in 2024 established
similarities in that when women responded they described that they showed increased climate
anxiety and cause more pro environmental behavior compared to men, that was in part because
women had a higher environmental identity and environmental risk perception (Carvalho et al.,
2024).
For the privileged people, economic inequality may lessen direct climate fear through the
potential to adapt or evacuate; while, in the case of deprived people, they experience a situation
of being incapable of leaving the risk but must remain in the environment (Adger et al., 2015).
Compound trauma is associated with loss of home, community, cultural belonging brought about
by migration and displacement that might be caused by floods, droughts, or storms (Barnett &
McMichael, 2018).
2023-2025 new Research Illumination
The validity of the Inventory of Climate Emotions was provided in Norway and Ireland,
allowing the authors to conclude that highly predictable emotions that are considered to be as
anxiety, sorrow, and guilt can be measured across different cultures successfully (Larsen et al.,
2024). Another longitudinal study carried out in 2022-2024 on four hundred and twenty six
Chinese adolescents revealed that there is a two-way interaction between climate awareness and
climate anxiety and each process escalates the other (Zhang et al., 2025).
In eleven European countries, climate concern was observed to augment the likelihood of
generalized anxiety disorder by thirty eight percent, and the difference in this occurrence was
attributed to national climate policy and coverage in the media (Lombardi et al., 2024). In
Portugal, greater anxiety level in women was related to a stronger pro environmental behavior,
indicating that anxiety may also promote action instead of being merely the mental health burden
(Carvalho et al., 2024). The longest meta analysis was to date proved age, gender and exposure
and media consumption to be predictors of climate anxiety where the research work in the
Global South was negligible (Carbon Brief, 2025).
Cross Cultural Therapeutic and Community Interventions
Upon cultural adaptation, local metaphors and narratives, e.g: communal storytelling could be
harnessed in the Pacific Islands setting, in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Acceptance and
Commitment Therapy. Such indigenous healing patterns as land based therapy, healing circles
and ceremonial traditions may supplement Western practice and support cultural continuity as a
protective factor (Kirmayer et al., 2011).
Such collective mobilization in climate solutions, including planting trees and restoring
wetlands, has been found to recast a climate anxiety to a sense of agency (Pihkala, 2020; Nature
Climate Change, 2024).
The role of clinicians
Cultural humility should be applied by clinicians who should acknowledge the boundaries of
their cultural reference frames. Interventions can be improved by working together with local
healers, elders and community organizers. It needs a non pathologizing later such as the fact that
the climate distress could be a logical reaction, and not a mental illness.
Climate anxiety is one of our common human experiences as well as a culturally specific
experience. To treat it, it will take the unity of the world coupled with local awareness, a position
that respects cultural wisdom, adjusts the tools of therapy, and links both psychological recovery
to environmental activism. To mental health professionals, the trick does not just lie in treating
climate anxiety but in assisting recovery into a source of resilience and change.
