Children who understand climate change are better equipped to cope with it -- more than 300 experts call for honest, empowering climate education
Climate Media Centre
Thursday 29 May 2026
More than 300 climate and mental health researchers, psychologists, psychiatrists, educators and community leaders have signed an open letter calling for honest, age-appropriate climate science education in Australian schools, saying knowledge equips children to cope with the climate reality they are already living.
Young Australians are already experiencing more frequent and severe storms, droughts, floods and fires, and will continue to do so in the decades ahead. They absorb information about climate change through social media, news, family conversations and their own lived experience of disasters. Schools offer a valuable opportunity to ground that information in facts, build emotional resilience, and provide constructive pathways forward.
Dr Cybele Dey, Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist; Researcher at UNSW Sydney; Chair, Mental Health Interest Group, Doctors for the Environment Australia, said:
“My patients are suffering. Many are distressed by what is happening in the world they are growing up in. They have watched their towns flood. They have stayed home from school because the air was dangerous to breathe. This is not distress about an abstract future. This is the physiological and psychological reality of a warming world, showing up in our hospitals right now.
“A child who understands, in simple terms, that carbon locked underground for millions of years is now being released into the atmosphere, changing the chemistry of how our planet holds heat, has a framework for understanding why summers are hotter, why there are more extreme weather days, and why humans acting on the science can improve the future. That understanding is not the source of despair. The absence of understanding appropriate to the child’s development, of trusted adults listening non-judgementally and the failure of leaders to act on it, are.”
Peer-reviewed research by Dr Cybele Dey and colleagues at UNSW, Sydney, The University of Sydney and The University of Queensland found that hotter temperatures are linked with increased emergency department presentations for suicidal thoughts and behaviour in children and young people across NSW, with effects seen even with mild hot weather and far worse with the extreme heat we are now seeing more often. This research shows that climate change is not an abstract future concern for children, it is a present, physical reality showing up in our hospitals.
Dr Fiona Martin, Former Federal MP and Educational and Developmental Psychologist, said:
“The scientific evidence on the health impacts of climate change is unambiguous. Anxiety in children often stems from a sense of powerlessness when facing a complex reality without adequate support. Children are not made more anxious by understanding the science, they are made more anxious by experiencing the reality of climate change without the support and tools to process it. Health professionals see this in their practices. The answer is better support and better education, not less of either.”
A systematic review of 1953 peer-reviewed publications found 20 school-based programs addressing climate change and mental health, co-authored by Dr Dey and a team including First Nations Elders and knowledge keepers, found no evidence that climate education causes adverse mental health outcomes. Studies showed either no change or improvement. Programs connecting students to nature, embedding First Nations cultural knowledge, supporting meaning-based coping, and running over longer periods produced the best outcomes.
Georgia Monaghan, Co-Founder, Ecomind, said:
“Every week we hear from young Australians who are already living with the reality of climate change; the smoke days, the floods, the creeping sense that the world their parents grew up in is changing beneath their feet. What they are asking for, consistently and clearly, is not silence. They want honest information, trusted adults who will take their concerns seriously, and the tools to channel what they feel into something meaningful. Accurate, developmentally appropriate and psychologically safe climate education is not the problem - it is part of the solution. What leaves young people most vulnerable is not knowing why, and feeling alone with it.”
Research shows that climate distress in young people is not caused by school lessons, it is a rational response to a real and worsening crisis. Climate distress is not a diagnosable anxiety disorder, it is what happens when empathetic young people absorb the reality around them without the frameworks, trusted adults or tools to process it. When young Australians from every state and territory were asked what they wanted for their future, they asked for more, not less, climate education that tells the truth and equips them to act.
Sunny Nguyen, who is a 24 year old from Melbourne, said:
“I grew up watching heatwave and bushfire warnings every summer, and the skies getting polluted as I took the bus to school. Imagine growing up with all of that, and then be told it’ll only get worse. What is important is getting the message out there on why this is happening, and what we can do about it. Climate education doesn’t make us more fearful or worried. It gives us somewhere to put what we were already feeling.”
Laura Billings, Senior Campaigner at Parents for Climate and mum of two, said:
"For parents across Australia, climate change is not an abstract topic on a school curriculum, it is already showing up in our children's lives. It is the smokey day when they can't go outside, the questions about why koalas are disappearing, the anxiety they carry that they don't yet have words for. Parents for Climate hears from thousands of families who know their kids are already absorbing this reality. What they are asking for is not silence, they are asking for help making sense of it. Shutting down that conversation does not protect our children. It leaves them alone with something they can already feel. Age-appropriate climate education creates the space for children to feel heard and understood, to know they are not alone, and to see that adults are working on solutions alongside them. That is what prepares children for the world they are growing up in, not avoidance, but honest, caring, empowering education."
MEDIA CONTACT: Sean Kennedy, Senior Media Advisor, Climate Media Centre — 0447 121 378 — [email protected]
— ENDS —
BACKGROUND
About the research:
• Dey, C., Wu, J., Uesi, J., Sara, G., et al. (2025). Youth suicidality risk relative to ambient temperature and heatwaves across climate zones: A time series analysis of emergency department presentations in New South Wales, Australia. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 59, pp. 18–28. https://doi.org/10.1177/00048674241290449
• Dixon-Grovenor, R., Dey, C., Kelly, D., Murray, C., Watfern, C., & Hogg, T. (2026, May 27). A review on school-based interventions for mental health impacts of climate change. Retrieved from osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/4kmf7_v1 A scoping review at UNSW, Sydney, examining 20 school-based programs for the mental health impacts of climate change, is currently available in pre-print and under peer review (submitted April 2026). No adverse mental health outcomes were found from any program reviewed. Positive outcomes were associated with nature-based learning, First Nations cultural knowledge, meaning-based coping, and longer-duration programs.
• Seth, A., Maxwell, J., Dey, C., Le Feuvre, C., & Patrick, R. (2023). Understanding and managing psychological distress due to climate change. Australian Journal of General Practice, 52, 263–268. Frames climate distress as a rational response to real events, distinct from clinical anxiety disorders.
Key facts:
• Climate distress is not a diagnosable anxiety disorder. It is a rational emotional response to the reality of climate change, distinct from clinical anxiety and not caused by education (Seth et al., 2023; RACGP, 2023).
• 84% of Australians have been directly affected by climate disasters since 2019 (Climate Council, 2024).
• 67% of young Australians are concerned about climate change (Orygen, 2023).
• Children today will experience two to seven times as many extreme weather events as their grandparents’ generation (Thiery et al., Science, 2021).
• Young Australians asked for more — not less — climate education that tells the truth and equips them to act (Connecting Climate Minds; Curious Climate Schools).
• Avoidance, rather than honest explanation, increases confusion, fear and anxiety in children (Cancer Research; Climate Psychology Alliance, 2025).
Contact details:
Sean Kennedy, Senior Media Advisor, Climate Media Centre — 0447 121 378 — [email protected]