By Natalie Thomas and Barbara Lewis and Jonathan Shenfield
LONDON (Reuters) – Overwhelmed, sad, and guilt-ridden is how some young people say they feel when they think about climate change and fears that world leaders will not be able to tackle it.
The sentiment commonly referred to as climate anxiety is the subject of growing research to measure its prevalence ahead of the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, which begins later this month to decide how to put the Paris Agreement into effect. 2015 to contain climate change.
Funded by Avaaz, a virtual campaign network, and led by the University of Bath, one of the largest studies to date surveyed 10,000 people ages 16 to 25 in 10 countries and published its results in September.
It revealed that around three quarters of respondents consider the future daunting, and the lack of action by governments and industry makes 45% feel climate anxiety and anguish, which affect their daily lives and functioning.
Elouise Mayall, an ecology student at the British University of East Anglia and a member of the UK Youth Coalition for Climate, told Reuters she felt guilty and overwhelmed.
“What I’m left with is, perhaps, a feeling of shame, like ‘how dare you still want lovely things when the world is ending and you don’t even know if you’ll have a safe world in which to grow old?'”
London-based psychiatrist Alastair Santhouse sees climate change and Covid-19 possibly increasing this burden, especially for those predisposed to anxiety.
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