Climate Justice and Youth Mental Health in the Global South: Lessons from the Philippines to the World

Climate change is rapidly becoming one of the most consequential forces shaping adolescent development: cognitively, emotionally, socially, and politically. Yet its psychological burden is unequally distributed. This keynote examines how climate change affects adolescent mental health in the Global South through both direct exposures (e.g., typhoons, floods, heat, drought) and indirect structural pathways, such as poverty, displacement, food insecurity, and intergenerational trauma. Evidence from the Philippines, one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable and youth-majority countries, shows that adolescents report exceptionally high levels of climate anxiety, grief, anger, and fear, not because they are mentally disordered but because they are developmentally attuned to threat, inequality, and future uncertainty.

At the same time, Filipino adolescents are active agents navigating these challenges through meaning-making, activism, nature connection, and community-based coping. Their responses illuminate the intersection of climate anxiety with developmental tasks of identity formation, autonomy, moral reasoning, and intergenerational justice. Drawing from case studies of Typhoon Haiyan, historical environmental injustice, gendered vulnerability, and landmark youth-led climate litigation in the Philippines, this talk argues that adolescent mental health must be understood within broader socio-historical structures, such as colonial legacies, economic inequality, and global power imbalances that shape who suffers and who decides.

Integrating empirical research with community practice, the keynote highlights protective factors uniquely relevant to young people: nature-based wellbeing, collective action, peer solidarity, civic engagement, and culturally grounded community support. These insights suggest that climate anxiety can also function as a motivator for agency, ethical clarity, and prosocial engagement when supported by enabling environments.

Ultimately, the talk calls for a justice-centered agenda for adolescent mental health in the climate crisis—one that recognizes young people not only as vulnerable populations but as essential actors shaping climate futures. Lessons from the Philippines offer a roadmap for understanding and supporting adolescents worldwide as they navigate the converging challenges of climate disruption, inequality, and developmental transitions.