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Addressing climate change requires people in the Global North to avoid high-impact behaviors like car use and air travel. Late adolescents, whose engagement in such behaviors may be restricted by age and parental decision-making, are in a crucial stage for developing a sense of moral responsibility for climate change. Understandingwhy some adolescents cultivate this responsibility is vital, as responsibility relates to both pro-environmentalengagement and well-being. Therefore, this study aims to identify factors associated with late adolescents’sense of moral responsibility. Nature connectedness, parental descriptive norms, and macro climate-changeworry have been positively linked to pro-environmental behavior in previous research, but their role in rela-tion to moral responsibility regarding climate change remains less clear. Similarly, the relationship betweendistancing coping and moral responsibility is yet to be fully understood. In this study we explore ways that thesefactors are associated with late adolescents’ moral responsibility and examine whether these relationships differbetween girls and boys. In 2023, we surveyed 619 Swedish high school students (ages 16–20). We used structuralequation modeling to answer our research questions. Connectedness to nature, parental norms, worry, anddistancing coping were positively associated with responsibility, with parental norms having a stronger effect forboys. Worry partially mediated how parental norms and nature connectedness related to responsibility, with astronger mediation effect for girls in the latter relationship. Distancing coping did not moderate the relationshipbetween worry and responsibility. Our findings are interpreted within social-ecological and emotion-normframeworks, and we suggest promoting responsibility through nature connectedness, role modeling, andconstructive worry management. Limitations, including those related to cross-sectional designs, are discussed. 

Climate change is a global crisis posing exceptional threats and demands on our younger generations. Our aim was to understand how climate-change worry and hope relate to climate-friendly behaviors, life satisfaction, and negative affect in young people across Qatar and Sweden—countries with different climates and challenges. Data from young people between 16 and 19 years of age from Sweden (n = 277; 61.37% female) and Qatar (n = 134; 49.25% female) were used. Participants completed questionnaires online. Correlational and regression analyses were used to test bivariate and unique associations and moderation effects. Climate worry was positively associated with climate-friendly behaviors in both samples. Climate worry was positively associated with negative affect and negatively associated with life satisfaction in the sample from Qatar, whereas in the Swedish sample it was only positively associated with negative affect. There was a significant interaction between climate hope and worry on climate-friendly behavior (interaction coefficient = 1.44, p = 0.0032) in the sample from Qatar, and on life satisfaction (interaction coefficient = 0.61, p = 0.036) in the sample from Sweden. Climate hope’s positive effects on these outcomes were significant at higher levels of worry. This study shows the importance of considering both the unique effects and the interplay between hope and worry across regions to understand the impacts of the climate crisis on young people.

Climate change is a major threat requiring active engagement from young people. However, adolescents can experience distress when confronting the problem. This three-wave longitudinal study of 684 adolescents (ages 12–17) examines how climate change distress and pro-environmental behavior influence each other at a within-person level and the role of coping strategies (de-emphasizing, problem-focused, meaning-focused coping) in such relationships. The results reveal that higher-than-expected levels of pro-environmental behavior were associated with higher-than-expected levels of climate change distress one year later, while higher-than-expected levels of climate change distress were associated with lower-than-expected levels of pro-environmental behavior. However, the results underscore the vital role of meaning-focused coping in managing climate change distress to promote pro-environmental behavior. For adolescents utilizing a high degree of meaning-focused coping, higher-than-expected levels of climate change distress were associated with increases in pro-environmental behavior over time, whereas the influence of pro-environmental behavior on distress was nonsignificant. In addition, a bidirectional longitudinal association was discovered between higher-than-expected levels of pro-environmental behavior and problem-focused coping. Overall, the study highlights the complex longitudinal dynamics between climate change distress, pro-environmental behavior, and coping strategies. The findings underline the importance of addressing coping strategies in interventions to promote active climate engagement and reduce distress among adolescents.

Addressing climate change requires people in the Global North to avoid high-impact behaviors like car use and air travel. Late adolescents, whose engagement in such behaviors may be restricted by age and parental decision-making, are in a crucial stage for developing a sense of moral responsibility for climate change. Understanding why some adolescents cultivate this responsibility is vital, as responsibility relates to both climate engagement and well-being. Therefore, this study aims to identify factors associated with late adolescents' sense of moral responsibility. Nature connectedness, parental social norms, and climate-change worry have been positively linked to pro-environmental behavior in previous research, but their role in relation to moral responsibility for climate change remains less clear. Similarly, the relationship between distancing coping and moral responsibility is yet to be fully understood. In this study we explore ways that these factors are associated with late adolescents´ moral responsibility, and examine whether these relationships differ between girls and boys. In 2023, we surveyed 619 Swedish high school students (ages 16-19), and used structural equation modeling to answer our research questions. Connection to nature, parents' norms, climate-change worry, and distancing coping positively influenced responsibility, with parents' norms having a stronger effect on boys. Climate-change worry partially mediated how parents’ norms and nature connectedness influenced responsibility, with a stronger mediation effect for girls in the latter relationship. Distancing coping did not moderate the relationship between worry and responsibility. Limitations are discussed, and we propose fostering moral responsibility through nature experiences, role modeling, and constructive worry management.

Climate change is a threat to the health and wellbeing of adolescents. Many adolescents express concern, worry, and anxiety about climate change. Yet, how adolescents are coping with their thoughts and feelings about climate change is not well understood. The objective of this research was to explore the psychometric properties of an Adapted Climate Change Coping Scale (CCCS-A) in a non-probabilistic sample of approximately 800 Canadian adolescents. Exploratory factor analysis was utilized. Internal reliability was assessed, and convergent validity was examined through analysis of correlations with related constructs. Correlations with wellbeing and mental health measures were also explored. The results indicated that four dimensions of coping with thoughts and feelings about climate change (de-emphasizing, distracting, problem-focused coping, and meaning-focused coping) were operationalized through a scale with 16-items. This extends prior scales in that it includes both measures of de-emphasizing and distracting coping within a single survey tool. Evidence of construct validity was found, and the internal reliability of subscales were good (omega ranged from 0.79 to 0.88). The sub-scales showed evidence of convergent validity. Additionally, all coping dimensions were positively associated with wellbeing, while associations with mental health problems were mixed across coping dimensions. The CCCS-A is a survey tool with demonstrated validity and reliability that captures a range of coping strategies adolescents use in response to climate change. This addresses a critical gap in climate change and mental wellbeing research by presenting a validated tool to assess adolescent climate change coping mechanisms.

Education about controversial sustainability issues is vital for society’s ability to handle problems like climate change in a democratic manner. How teachers educate about these issues should, ideally, be evidence-based. However, teachers’ ideals and attitudes about education also play a role in how they teach. The aim of this questionnaire study with Swedish junior high-school teachers’ (n=378) was to explore whether, and how, different teaching traditions – culturally shared ideals regarding education – are associated with reported ways of teaching – i.e., various concrete teaching practices – regarding controversial sustainability issues. Four teaching traditions were identified: A fact-based, - against values tradition was negatively related to, while a pluralistic tradition was positively related to, all ways of teaching, i.e., encouraging sustainable actions, rational reflection, perspective-taking, emotional awareness, and using conflicts for learning among students. A fact-based science orientation was foremost positively associated with promoting rational reflection among students. A normative tradition was positively related to encouraging rational reflection, perspective-taking, and emotional awareness. We also investigated differences between teaching traditions regarding gender and subject identification. We discuss the results in relation to theories and earlier studies about teaching traditions. Practical implications for teacher education and already-active teachers are elaborated upon.

In this article, we summarize research about how adolescents relate to climate change. We show that climate change is of importance for adolescents’ mental wellbeing, moral development, and different forms of civic engagement, ranging from doing small things in everyday life to collective engagement. This is true both for adolescents who come in direct contact with the dire consequences of this problem and those who foremost relate to climate change indirectly through media and school. We argue for the importance of promoting constructive coping among adolescents and working together with this age group to support mental wellbeing, trust, and civic engagement.

Based on earlier empirical research, the main aim of this chapter is to argue for the importance of promoting meaning-focused coping and constructive hope in relation to climate change among young people. We start by describing the role of meaning and positive emotions like hope in the coping process and how meaning-focused coping and constructive hope are interrelated. Thereafter, we describe several aspects of meaning-focused coping in relation to the climate threat and show that this way of coping is associated with both mental well-being and climate change engagement. We also review some studies that demonstrate how collective climate engagement can give hope and meaning to young activists. The chapter also aims to discuss the practical implications of these studies, both for different groups of adults who want to communicate with youth about climate change in a constructive way (like parents and teachers) and for young people themselves. We finish the chapter by emphasizing the need for promoting critical emotional awareness where it is acknowledged that emotions and coping are not solely individual experiences but are also influenced by cultural emotion norms, gender norms, and power. The age groups in focus are adolescents and emerging adults.

People in the Global North need to adopt high-impact behaviors (such as refraining from using a car or avoiding air travel). Given that numerous late adolescents may still reside with their parent/-s, assessing the personal adoption of high-impact climate behaviors could be challenging, as these decisions are often influenced by their parent/-s. Therefore, it might be more relevant to explore factors that can predict how morally responsible late adolescents feel, as moral obligation can be closely related to behavior. Climate-change worry, nature connectedness, parents´ social norms, and being female, have shown positive associations to climate-friendly engagement in previous research, whereas de-emphasizing coping has revealed a negative relationship. A questionnaire study was conducted with 596 Swedish senior high school students (age 16-20) in 2023, and data analyzed through hierarchical regression. Preliminary results reveal that after controlling for gender in step 1, the explained variance in moral responsibility increased from 12 % to 56 % when climate-change worry, nature connectedness, parents´ norms and de-emphasizing coping were entered into the model in step 2. The largest unique effect on moral responsibility was attributed to climate-change worry. The results suggest that more than half of the variability in late adolescents´ moral responsibility can be explained by the proposed predictors. Limitations and implications are discussed. 

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to examine the relationships between exposure to climate change information in traditional and modern media, cognitive and emotional aspects of climate change risk judgment, and pro-environmental behavior (PEB).

METHOD: A cross-sectional online study was conducted on a quota sample of 1,075 participants (51.9% women) aged 18-79 years. Participants self-reported their exposure to climate change-related information in traditional (e.g. television) and modern media (e.g. social networks), cognitive assessment of climate change risk, level of worry about climate change, and the frequency of PEB.

RESULTS: Structural equation modeling showed a good fit for the parallel mediation model, involving cognitive risk judgment and worry as mediators between exposure to climate change information in traditional and modern media and PEB. Exposure to climate change information in traditional media had indirect effect on PEB through heightened worry, but not cognitive risk judgment. In contrast, exposure to climate change information in modern media had no indirect effect on PEB.

CONCLUSION: Since the link between exposure to climate change information in traditional media and PEB has been shown to be mediated by climate change worry, it is important to enhance the coverage of climate change in traditional media in Croatia, taking care to offer solutions to reduce possible negative impact on people's well-being.