FAQ’s

Aim and scope

  • Connecting Climate Minds is for everyone who identifies that understanding and responding to the interconnections between climate change and mental health is relevant to their work, or to their lived experiences.

    We are particularly interested in creating regional and global communities where researchers across different disciplines (e.g. climate science, climate adaptation and mitigation, social science, mental health research, public health, neuroscience, psychology, psychiatry, climate policy, health policy) can come together and combine their expertise. These communities will be strongly linked to those with experience of the mental health challenges affected by the climate crisis, those making decisions in policy, and those who support communities.

    Together, we can find out what research is needed to address the mental health challenges of the climate crisis to ensure that climate action considers, and benefits, mental health.

  • 1) To create an agenda, through dialogue, for research and action in climate change and mental health, that is responsive to the lived experiences of those with worsened mental health challenges in the context of the climate crisis.

    2) To develop connected communities of practice in climate change and mental health, equipped with the diversity of expertise, drive, tools and resources to enact the research and action agenda.

    Both aims will be met at regional and global levels.

  • Throughout the year, this project will involve:

    • Two Regional Dialogues in all seven Sustainable Development Goal regions bringing together stakeholders across diverse relevant research disciplines, policy, healthcare, climate action and lived experience, to identify research needs and priorities for their region and foster communities of practice.

    • Three Thematic Global Dialogues focusing on communities with particular climate vulnerabilities: youth, Indigenous communities and smallholder farming communities.

    • Global Convening to share, refine and endorse regional and global research and action agendas, and identify opportunities to support implementation.

    • A Global Online Hub which we aim to become the “go to” space for climate change and mental health resources.

    • Academic and non-academic outputs to share insights developed through the project and provide actionable and accessible resources to help enact the research and action agenda.

    • Lived Experience stories to ensure the human experiences behind the research and action priorities are understood and acted on.

    • Case studies of exemplary and innovative practice in climate change and mental health from around the world, to share learnings across geographies and inspire further action.

  • No there are no grants available through the project. We will be advocating for further investment in climate change and mental health research and action from research funders, in line with the research and action agendas.

  • The project will bring together people working in different disciplines and sectors, all with a focus on understanding and responding to the interconnections between climate change and mental health. The core team includes researchers with backgrounds in neuroscience, psychology, climate science, big data science, social science, medicine, public health, mental health research and policy research.

    The scope and structure of the dialogues and the research and action agenda they will generate will incorporate innovative and proven methods to connect people across different backgrounds in ways that spark deep sharing and creative insights. This includes expertise from the Red Cross Red Crescent Virtually Amazing Centre and the insights from the Food Systems Dialogues led by the UN system with support from 4SD Foundation.

    We will also use mixed methods (surveys, short discussions and interviews, and other impact metrics) to evaluate all aspects of the project and its impact.

    Co-production is a method of working in partnership at all stages with the people the project is trying to serve. Connecting Climate Minds is working with people with lived experience of mental health challenges and climate hazards at all stages, including in the design of all aspects of the project and its outputs. Co-production in the project includes for instance co-design workshops to create the features for the Global Online Hub with a diversity of researchers and other stakeholders. The Regional Communities will include Lived Experience Advisory Groups and Youth Ambassadors, who will help amend materials and methods developed by a global team to be appropriate to regional contexts, cultures, accessibility needs, and languages.

  • We will be working with researchers, policy experts, healthcare practitioners, community-based organisations, and people with lived experience of mental health challenges and climate hazards. In particular, we will also have global dialogues by and for young people, Indigenous people and smallholder farmers.

  • Connecting climate minds will foster connection and share learnings across groups in a variety of ways. This includes:

    • A Global Online Hub to showcase all project outputs, share case studies of best practice and lived experience stories from around the world, and allow people working in climate and mental health to better find and connect with each other.

    • Regional Communities of Practice: Regional dialogues, trainings and capacity building workshops for the Regional Communities of Practice to grow across disciplines and sectors, including both climate and mental health/health representation. Co-Convenors help to bring in networks across disciplines and countries.

    • Thematic dialogues to hear from and connect communities highly vulnerable to the impacts of the climate crisis and with unique wisdoms to share, but often not included meaningfully in research: youth, Indigenous Communities and smallholder farmers.

    • Global hybrid event in 2024.

  • Wellcome are very excited to be supporting this project as a one-year investment that will lay the foundations for an inclusive, methodologically robust, and actionable research agenda for climate change and mental health. ​Their aspiration is that in setting this research and action agenda, other funders will be able to more easily understand and navigate this space, seize the opportunities and bridge the gaps identified. Wellcome has not committed funding beyond this project, but further consideration will be made once the findings emerge and they are currently working with the Connecting Climate Minds team on effective dissemination and uptake of this work.

  • The Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre has years of experience developing various boundary-breaking strategies and innovative facilitation methodologies. Within this project the team continues to explore different ways of bringing together innovation and uncoventional modalities to awaken the attention and imagination of participants in various sectors. For instance the team has used the concept and outcomes of 'serious games' in settings ranging from rural Zambia to the White House, for example through the interpretation of data through art, working with aerial acrobats to think about risks and hazards or artists and humour to unpack reponses to climate change, policy and engagement. The Climate Centre also brings together a number of team members representing specialist teams within the Climate Centre such as health and climate; climate and conflict; policy; psychosocial support; urban heat; and innovative engagement. The inclusion of this range of team members who are based around the world, offers further opportunities to discuss and work between disciplines within the global and regional project spaces. The team also brings together innovation in the meeting and facilitation environments and through the development of toolkits for people coming into these spaces. The toolkit the Climate Centre will develop will provide facilitated guidance on convening including shared definitions, terminologies, concepts and methods of working which enable both the event convenors and participants.

  • Throughout Connecting Climate Minds, we will be showcasing the outputs from the project, in particular the research and action agenda, to many different communities who need to be involved to fund and act on it. This includes sharing insights at local levels through the Regional Communities of Practice, through high-level conferences such as COP28 and the United for Global Mental Health Summit, and through our Global Online Hub and Advisory Board.

    Building the Communities of Practice around the world and undertaking the dialogues and capacity building will also serve to raise awareness of the climate and mental health nexus to various stakeholders coming into the space.

    The outputs will feature insights and stories from people with lived experience of mental health challenges in the context of the climate crisis, including both their difficulties and their sources of resilience. We will ensure their voices are central to advocating for action at all levels of policy and practice. The Regional Communities of Practice will be connecting with relevant decision makers who can implement the agenda.

    The Connecting Climate Minds team is also working closely with the Wellcome policy team to find appropriate opportunities to advocate for implementation of the research and action agenda.

    The Global Online Hub will work to become a central “go to” space for climate and mental health, including to provide resources that people working in this space can use to raise awareness of the need to understand and act on climate change and mental health. It will also feature case studies of best practice from around the world to showcase the great work already happening to understand and respond to the mental health impacts of the climate crisis, much of which is largely unknown by global researchers and policymakers.

  • Wellcome has launched a new strategy in 2020 that seeks to fund science to solve the urgent health challenges facing everyone. Two of these challenges identified are Mental Health, and Climate & Health. Wellcome has chosen to fund this project at the intersection of climate change and mental health as it is of high strategic interest to them given these two main areas of focus. Additionally, they have a particular interest in field building activities where they can use their convening powers to strengthen particular fields of research.​ They are also a global funder and are therefore keen on addressing what are likely to be two of the main global challenges humanity will face in the following decades.​ Finally, they want to support this work both for the greater good as well as to support them in advancing their climate and mental health strategies. ​

Mental health and climate change

  • Strong emotional responses to the climate crisis that can be a sign of a healthy and adaptive response to the threat will be recognised as such across the project and will not be pathologized (seen as a mental illness). The team also understand that distress in the face of climate change and climate inaction, while understandable and healthy, may be a factor contributing to on-going stressors that create or exacerbate mental health challenges. We will be careful to distinguish this as best as we can, while understanding that people may speak about their experiences and the very real impacts on their lives and functioning in different ways. We will be led by language used by the communities, and the Lived Experience Advisory Group members and Youth Ambassadors in the regions will help guide interpretation and appropriate use of language, while understanding that when it comes to climate distress or to mental health challenges, different people will feel comfortable using different ways of describing their experiences.

    The Lived Experience Working Group are also offering guidance on how to recognise the unique strengths and insights of all participants in the project, including those who have experienced/are experiencing climate related distress and/or mental health challenges.

  • As a Wellcome-funded project, the scope of Connecting Climate Minds primarily focuses on mental health challenges. This does not imply a medical diagnosis, rather the experience of thoughts, feelings or behaviours that are distressing to the person experiencing them and at a level where they are impacting their daily life and functioning (see definition of mental health challenge in the FAQ above).

    We will include a focus on people who identify as experiencing mental health challenges, or who have symptoms that could be diagnosed as a mental illness – e.g. including symptoms of depression, anxiety, psychosis – and that this is worsened by or their access to care and ability to manage made more difficult by the climate crisis.

    In most cases, eco-anxiety is not a mental health challenge in itself (as per the definition of mental health challenge used in the FAQ above). However, for some people, it may act as an additional stressor that can contribute to worsened mental health.

    We will also listen to the experiences shared by those who participate in the dialogues or share their experiences throughout the project, and the language they use to describe their experiences.

  • Amongst other stakeholders with a strong climate focus, the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre will support efforts to ensure that we harness climate-relevant scientific knowledge, and mobilise climate policy and practice at global, regional and local levels. Regional climate leads from the Climate Centre will be involved to support the work of regional teams. The Climate Centre is also developing regional climate hazard and impact information sheets to assist discussion during the dialogues and setting the research agenda.

  • As a Wellcome-funded project, the scope of Connecting Climate Minds primarily focuses on mental health challenges which is defined by Wellcome as:

    • Thoughts, feelings, and/or behaviours that lead to significant levels of psychological distress.

    • Thoughts, feelings, and/or behaviours that significantly impact a person’s ability to function in one or more areas of life.

    Wellcome doesn't require the use of specific diagnostic terminology and acknowledge that the language used to describe mental health challenges is likely to vary and be shaped by culture. Wellcome recognises that individuals will articulate their own experiences of mental health challenges in locally specific and sometimes idiosyncratic ways and recognises that the current diagnostic categories are imperfect but removing all categories or creating new ones also presents difficulties. Therefore, it is proposed to keep using these as broadly defined constellations of features or symptoms. Certain terms such as anxiety, depression, and psychosis are taken to refer to constellations of thoughts, feelings, and behaviours that have historically been classified as discrete conditions. In most cases, eco-anxiety is not a mental health challenge in itself (as per the definition of mental health challenge used above). However, for some people, it may act as an additional stressor that can contribute to worsened mental health.

    Concrete examples of mental health challenges in the context of climate change include:

    • Person developing post-traumatic stress disorder following an extreme weather event

    • Person struggling to adhere to psychotropic medication regime due to impaired ability to thermoregulate body in heatwaves

    • Person living with psychosis not being able to access community mental health services due to flooding

    • Person with severe anxiety related to climate change not being able to go to school

    • Person with depression developing suicidal ideation in the context of drought leading to crop failure

    • Person developing insomnia because of fear of future floods

    It is important to note that the current focus should not be interpreted as signalling externally that constructs that do not fall within the notion of mental health challenges are not important.

Evidence based

  • The climate change and mental health research field is growing rapidly, with 358 academic papers published in the last year alone. That is three times the number of papers published in all the years till 2021! Even before then, many researchers were learning about things that are now relevant to climate change and mental health, such as how being forced from your home in a flood or wildfire can affect mental health outcomes, and what can protect people in these circumstances.

    This research has shown that climate change is a risk multiplier, making it more likely that people will experience worsened symptoms or new cases of mental illness, deaths by suicide, physical ill-health or even death for those with mental health challenges, and worsened population mental health. This is due to climate change increasing global temperatures, increasing the frequency and severity of extreme events such as storms, floods, heatwaves, wildfires and droughts. These events and shifting climate patterns also lead to food and water insecurity, social unrest, forced migration, disruption to healthcare access and other challenges that destablise the conditions needed to protect mental health and care for those with mental illness. Finally, being aware of the climate crisis and insufficient climate action can raise understandable strong emotions like grief, fear, anger, guilt, and despair. While healthy responses to the climate threat, without appropriate outlets, these thoughts and feelings can act as a chronic stressor and worsen mental health outcomes. Groups already vulnerable to poor mental health outcomes in society, including people from poorer communities or where there is less access to healthcare, are particularly at risk from these climate hazards.

    Climate action is an opportunity multiplier for mental health, with many parallels between the actions required to create a safer climate future, and those needed for good mental health, like equal societies, strong communities, clean air and access to green space in communities, participatory approaches to healthcare and climate action. Please see the 'About' page for some relevant papers.

    It is very important to note that there is a wealth of expertise and insights that exist in the communities already living with the impacts of the climate crisis, including how it affects those with existing mental health challenges or creates new ones, and what can promote resilience. Much of this hasn’t been captured in the academic literature, but is incredibly important and will be central to Connecting Climate Minds.

  • The climate and mental health field is growing rapidly, and great work is being done across the world. However some challenges remain, that we are trying to address in Connecting Climate Minds, to help the field go further, faster. These challenges include:

    Disconnected: there is currently no "go to" space for climate change and mental health. Great work happening, including for example in communities already experiencing the impacts of the climate crisis in the Global South is not being learned about widely. It can be hard to find all the others working in this space, particularly across countries, or regions where the field is still being developed.

    Siloed: Research, policy and practice on climate change and mental health still largely happens separately, without considering how progress can depend on and benefit each other.

    Uneven: Some regions and topics are much more widely covered by current research than others. The vast majority of research on climate change and mental health for example has been conducted in high income countries, even though this doesn't represent the communities being hit first and worst by the climate crisis.

    Other challenges and gaps we hope to surface and address (may form some of the priority research themes and action points) include: lack of standardised metrics and datasets; lack of access to mental healthcare in many of the places most affected by climate change; interventions are being developed organically, but essentially none have been evaluated by researchers, and many are local, small scale, and largely unknown.

Regional engagement

  • The regional communities - which include co-conveners, lived experience advisers, youth ambassadors, technical experts, and dialogue participants - will be comprised of a wide range of stakeholders from diverse geographic and cultural backgrounds. This will ensure that rich perspectives reflecting different understandings and resource situations are manifest in the regional dialogues, the regional research and action agenda, and other project outputs. The project team and regional community conveners also receive training on how to meaningfully and respectfully engage with various stakeholders, particularly people with lived experiences and key population groups such as youth and Indigenous peoples, to capture local knowledge and experiences and gain culturally-respectful insights into the issues and solutions at the intersection between climate change and mental health.

  • To see who the Regional Community Convenors are please see the 'People' page. There you will find information on the organisation and the people involved. To get in touch, please fill out the form via the 'Get involved' page.

  • Regional Communities of Practice will be formed, composed of a diverse range of stakeholders from various geographic, sectoral, and cultural backgrounds, serving as co-conveners, lived experience advisers, youth ambassadors, technical experts, and dialogue participants. To craft the regional research and action agenda, a series of dialogues will be held that utilise a shared global methodology but is tailored to suit the specific regional context. Case studies of region-specific issues, policies, and practices, as well as stories of people with lived experience will be collected, documented, and later shared to the community and through the Global Online Hub. These products will hopefully guide future researchers and policymakers who are interested in making a difference in the nexus of climate change and mental health. Capacity building activities will also be organized by regional community conveners to help address gaps identified during the regional dialogues and surveys.

  • The regional communities will be producing a regional research and action agenda for climate change and mental health, a policy brief summarizing the key recommendations from the dialogues, a series of case studies and lived experience stories, and other articles and blogs.

  • The regional communities will ensure that not only academics but also policymakers, advocates, and practitioners are engaged in the dialogue process and in other parts of the project. Project outputs will be co-developed by these different stakeholders to ensure collective ownership and to increase the chance of translating knowledge into real-world change in policy and practice. Wider communities, especially young people and civil society who are active online, will also be engaged through the project website and social media. Throughout the project, community members led by the Regional Community Conveners will intentionally and consistently identify potential entry points for policy advocacy, community mobilization, and positive reform in the way programs are implemented in different countries.

Lived experience

  • Lived experience (LE) means the unique forms of person-centered knowledge, insight, stories, and expertise that come from a range of experiences. LE in this project is focused on people who share lived experience of mental health challenges in the context of climate change.

    We understand LE in the context of climate change and mental health as a multi-layered, emergent area of work that must be addressed inclusively, with particular attention to how the environment, culture, and health are interconnected. Importantly, culture can influence how people think about what constitutes illness and wellness for themselves and others.

    With the above in mind, we want to ensure in this dialogue series that there is involvement of:

    • People living with mental health challenges that are directly associated with the climate crisis, including the impacts of climate catastrophe on mental health.

    • People with experiences of mental health challenges or access to mental healthcare that are worsened or disrupted by climate change.

    • People living with pre-existing mental challenges that experience amplified burdens due to climate change.

    • People who have unique mental health challenges related to the impacts of climate change (e.g. loss of homelands, loss of agriculture, disruption in school, inability to access mental healthcare etc).

    • People with intersectional identities that are often left out of global decision-making on climate change and mental health (LGBTQI+, People with Disabilities, Women, Ethnic minorities, Displaced people, Climate migrants, climate refugees).

    • People with cultural structures and knowledge systems that are marginalized in climate change and mental health science and policy and treatments/intervention models and practices, such as Indigenous people and local communities.

  • Lived experience (LE) leadership in this project is aimed at bringing wisdom and expertise from perspectives not traditionally valued or engaged in research efforts and will be incorporated through a collaborative process. In order to ensure meaningful inclusion throughout the project, the project has built the following infrastructure:

    1) at the central level there is a lived experience working group composed of community-based non-profit leaders with lived experience that are guiding LE engagement across all project streams,

    2) at the regional level and global advisory level there are specific positions established for including LE experts and advisors so that activities at these levels are informed and guided by people bringing lived experience wisdom,

    3) across regions there will be strong inclusion of community members with LE within the dialogues themselves,

    4) the project is actively listening and learning from people with lived experience through perspective and story gathering to ensure the dialogues are built by a wide-ranging set of perspectives and that the outputs from the research conducted are supported by stories gathered,

    5) empowering lived experience leaders to share their stories and wisdom in global decision-making settings, including through upskilling workshops.

    The aforementioned structure for reaching and engaging people with lived experience is rooted in the project teams commitment to taking above and beyond steps to ensure accessibility and flexibility that creates supportive conditions for people with LE to particpate. One such way we have done this is ensuring that all teams are oriented to best practices in LE engagement and Trauma-informed engagement practices.

  • Alongside following a clear ethics protocol that is approved by Imperial College London, the team is taking steps to ensure all members are exposed to trauma-healing principles and ways to safeguard people's mental health and wellbeing while undertaking dialogues. Skilled facilitators are being engaged from the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre and IFRC Psychosocial Support Centre who are helping design sessions that are supportive of people's mental health needs.

Policy, practice and action

  • The outputs of this project (which will include regional and global policy briefs) will be shared in global spaces (such as COP28, World Health Assembly) to advocate for investment and action in climate change and mental health, and to raise awareness among decision makers. Crucial to our approach, however, will be balancing global advocacy with ensuring project outputs bring the right level of regional specificity to be actionable at the national and local level.

    Outputs will be relevant, needed and actionable for policy stakeholders, as they will be involved in the project throughout. This firstly will ensure that regional and global research and action agendas reflect the evidence they need to take action and associated barriers and opportunities, and secondly will aim to start addressing exsiting barriers through the project itself e.g. by connecting policymakers with each other across currently siloed sectors, and with researchers and communities who are experiencing and responding to mental health impacts of climate change.

  • Regional research and action agendas will support advocacy for win-win actions through multiple activities: identifying priority research questions that may support the quantification of costs and benefits of climate action for mental health, supporting the identification of priority win-win actions in each region, and developing case studies that may also highlight examples of how win-wins are already happening in practice. A global output of Connecting Climate Minds will also be a policy and action toolkit, equipping Communities of Practice with not only the content to support advocacy but also the tools on how to do so.

    Connecting Climate Minds will also faciliate advocacy by bringing the outputs of this work to regional and global policy spaces. Connecting Climate Minds will also help foster alignment with other advocacy efforts. For example, we are working in coordination with cop2, a global multi-disciplinary network focusing on implementation for climate change and mental health and how to integrate psychological resilience into climate initiatives.

Getting involved

  • To learn about the Connecting Climate Minds team please visit the Project Team page via the 'People' button above.

  • As an expert working on climate change and mental health you would be able to help shape a research and action agenda. This includes potentially being asked to contribute to a regional dialogue or inform or co-produce outputs. Register your interest via the 'Get involved' page.

  • The intersection between climate change and mental health is an emerging field. For example, there are no standardised metrics to track the range of mental health outcomes associated with climate-related risks and impacts, or methods to attribute mental health outcomes to climate change appropriately. Therefore, we need experts in both climate change and mental health to come together and contribute their knowledge to develop this emerging field. To register your interest in contributing to the development of a research and action agenda, see the 'Get involved' page for more information.

  • One of the main aims of Connecting Climate Minds is to develop an aligned global research and action agenda for the climate change and mental health space that is gounded in the needs of people with lived experience. Part of this Regional Community Convenors will gather lived experience stories to identify, highlight, and uplift the experiences of people being affected by the mental health impacts of climate change. These stories will be shared through the Global Online Hub, social media, and to bring to life the research agendas and key asks to decision makers when advocating for appropriate investment and implementation of the agendas created through the project. If you want to share your story or contribute your insights please register your interest via the 'Get involved' page.

  • Joining your regional community of practice will allow you to stay up to date on what is happening in your community and access training provided in your region. For connecting with others (globally) please sign up to the global online hub (coming soon). Please register you interest via the 'Get involved' page.

  • All project outputs will be published on our Global Online Hub which will be launched in late 2023/early 2024. Please sign up to our newsletter via the 'Sign up' button at the top of this page to stay up to date and receive the latest publications.

  • The Regional Community Convenors will be developing case studies to showcase examples of unique problems and challenges as well as success and excellence in research, practice, and policy in the context of climate change and mental health intersection in each region. The case studies will describe the contextual challenges and provide insights about effective (e.g., socio-cultural/ economic) strategies for the emerging global and regional climate change and mental health communities of practice. If you have a case study that you would like to nominate, please let us know via the 'Get involved' page and t'Get involved' pagehe relevant Regional Community Convenors will get in touch if your case study nomination gets selected.

Connecting Climate Minds Hub

Join our new digital platform, designed to unite the fields of mental health and climate change. The hub aims to foster understanding, encourage interdisciplinary collaboration and drive impactful action, all while providing a supportive community for those dedicated to these critical issues.