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With constant news coverage surrounding our hot summers and the collective failure to reach climate carbon targets, how are young people dealing with the uncertainty that surrounds their future?
The climate crisis is back in the headlines this week. Experts now believe we have only two years left of our carbon budget if we’ve any hope of keeping global warming below 1.5C.
That means countries have to drastically start scaling back on their emissions at a near-impossible rate in order to keep things under control. If we exceed the 1.5C threshold, carbon will have to be sucked out of our atmosphere in the coming decades and many more communities and people will be gravely effected by extreme weather and flooding.
None of it makes for particularly optimistic reading, and the wider picture indicates that humanity is inevitably headed toward a disastrous climate catastrophe.
Considering that the future of our planet directly affects Gen Zers as they enter adulthood and middle age, it shouldn’t be surprising to know that a huge proportion of young people face climate anxiety on a regular basis. In fact, in 2021, a study found that 45% of Gen Z are impacted by climate anxiety every day, with that figure expected to have risen in the past four years.
While reports this year have stated that roughly 90% of the world wants more action on climate change, the issue is a deeply emotional and personal one for Gen Z voters.
They’re feeling the real-time effects of weather changes while still young – the world they’ll inherit from older generations feels impossibly unstable, and there is a growing unease that we can’t continue to live the way we do currently and expect a bright future. In the UK this week, for example, we’re expecting temperatures upward of 30C, while last year was the hottest on record.
Climate anxiety has a ton of knock-on effects both physically and mentally. It can manifest as intrusive thoughts and feelings about the future, especially disasters and the lives of your children or grandchildren. For extreme cases, worry can affect relationships and the ability to be productive at work or school. It is linked to depression, general anxiety and feelings of hopelessness.
These worries are also changing the way Gen Z see their futures. A large collective within this age group are uncertain about whether it is ethical to even have children, save for a retirement, or invest seriously in any kind of future beyond the next several decades, given that all the science is telling us that things are getting worse at an even quicker rate than initially predicted.
Why contribute to a pension scheme if there’s a very real chance your entire country will be underwater by the time you’re a senior citizen? One study by the University of Bath in 2019 found that 41% of those aged 16-25 were hesitant to have children as a direct consequence of climate change, and 71% said the future is ‘frightening.’ This was six years ago, and optimism surrounding our climate solutions has dwindled further since then.
How are young people coping with the scary state of things? The answer, unsurprisingly, is largely through eco-activism.
Some Gen Zers are doing their best to contribute to the solution as best they can, attending protests and showing up to political rallies where it’s needed. There are varying degrees of intensity to this approach – Extinction Rebellion being the most provocative – but it is largely a way to channel anxiety into something positive.
Crucially, more young people than ever seem wary of the false emphasis companies often place on individual action, rather than corporate or government change. Reducing your own carbon footprint and recycling where possible is fine, obviously, but it is far more important that countries on a wider scale move away from fossil fuels, reduce wastage, and stop funding Big Oil projects. Greenwashing is rife in this way, but Gen Z seem slightly more accustomed to misleading practices than generations prior.
Unfortunately, at least for the time being, climate change action appears to be on the backburner. Trump’s policies and initiatives are reducing effective plans in the US, while each COP summit seems to prove fruitless. The UK could theoretically reach its 2030 and 2050 goals if it doubles down on green policy, and may be the global leader for effective climate action in the coming decades.
For Gen Zers who are feeling hopeless, the anxiety is understandable and warranted. More needs to be done by everybody across the board, and sooner rather than later. We’ve only two years to keep things under that 1.5C threshold after all.
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