Youth Climate Anxiety: Implications for Litigation

The study surveyed 10,000 people aged 16 to 25 in ten countries. More than 45% reported that their feelings about climate change negatively affected their daily life and functioning, while 75% said the future was frightening. The webinar uses these findings to examine psychological distress as a current experience for many young people, including those who have not suffered a direct physical climate impact.

Respondents who perceived government responses as inadequate also reported greater climate-related distress and feelings of betrayal. That relationship matters to the panel’s discussion of accountability. It is an association in survey responses, however, and does not by itself prove that a particular government action caused a particular person’s psychological harm.

A claim based only on future harm may face questions about how certain or immediate that harm is. The speakers suggest that evidence of distress affecting young people’s lives now can help explain why a claim concerns present well-being, even though the climate impacts they fear may intensify later. Litigants would still need to satisfy the court’s requirements for evidence and standing.

Mavronicola explores whether severe psychological suffering, combined with state policies or failures to act, could fall within this human rights protection. She discusses arguments concerning living conditions, government awareness of harm, and the treatment of younger generations. The webinar presents this as a proposed legal argument, not an established ruling that climate anxiety automatically violates this prohibition.

The panel identifies several: showing how individual applicants are affected, connecting their harm to the conduct challenged, establishing a court’s jurisdiction, and meeting procedural requirements such as using available domestic remedies first. Evidence that distress is widespread helps show the issue’s scale, but a court may still require an account of each applicant’s circumstances.

At the time of the webinar, Duarte Agostinho and Others v. Portugal and 32 Others was pending before the European Court of Human Rights. In April 2024, the Court declared the application inadmissible. It found no basis for jurisdiction over the applicants in the states other than Portugal and held that the applicants had not pursued available legal avenues in Portugal. The Court therefore did not decide whether the alleged psychological harms established a violation of the Convention.

The discussion recognizes a role for helping young people cope with distress. Van Susteren and Mavronicola also argue that responses should address the conditions contributing to that distress, including government climate action and the policies that shape emissions. Mavronicola raises the possibility of remedies directed at broader state policies, while acknowledging that courts have limits and that litigation is part of wider public action.

Climate litigators and human rights researchers can use it to examine how psychological evidence might support a claim and where procedural obstacles arise. Youth advocates, mental health professionals, and campaigners can use the study and discussion to communicate young people’s experiences while keeping survey findings, proposed legal arguments, and court decisions distinct.