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PERSPECTIVE article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Environmental Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1547678
This article is part of the Research TopicClimate Change AnxietyView all 10 articles
Climate anxiety as a call to global justice
Provisionally accepted- Department of Neuroscience, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Rome, Rome, Lazio, Italy
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Climate anxiety, often referred to as eco-anxiety, is a growing psychological phenomenon linked to the increasing awareness of the environmental crisis caused by climate change (Hickman et al., 2021;Ogunbode et al., 2022;Pearson, 2024). It describes the feelings of dread, helplessness, fear, and concern that individuals experience in response to the ongoing environmental degradation and its potential impacts on the planet. This anxiety can manifest in a wide range of emotional and cognitive responses, from heightened worry about the future to feelings of powerlessness and despair. However, climate anxiety is not purely negative. For many people, the fear and concern about climate change can spur action and various forms of adaptation (Cianconi et al., 2021). It can motivate people to engage in environmental advocacy, adopt sustainable lifestyles, and push for policy change.Climate anxiety cannot be truly understood without placing it within the context of the anthropogenic mechanisms that have contributed to pollution and climate change and that are failing to control their consequences, creating a sense of mistrust and uncertainty towards the national and international institutions that are supposed to guarantee people's security. All these circumstances ultimately lead to a sense of fear for the future. Which is precisely the main source of anxiety.
Keywords: Climate Change, Climate anxiety, Ecoanxiety, Climate injustice, Adaptability
Received: 18 Dec 2024; Accepted: 07 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 JANIRI, Cianconi, Hanife, GRILLO and Paulinich. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
LUIGI JANIRI, Department of Neuroscience, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Rome, Rome, 20123, Lazio, Italy
Paolo Cianconi, Department of Neuroscience, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Rome, Rome, 20123, Lazio, Italy
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