The role of coping strategies in reducing climate anxiety and promoting pro-environmental behavior

Climate change, the most pervasive threat to the natural environment and humanity, has profound negative effects on mental health, especially for youth experiencing high levels of climate anxiety and worry. The established anxiety-addressing interventions are lacking, as decreasing anxiety may also lead to decreasing pro-environmental behavior. The aim of the study is to evaluate coping strategies-based interventions, i.e., expressive writing to decrease rumination (an important aspect of anxiety) and behavior planning to enhance pro-environmental behavior. In online intervention study, 204 young individuals with at least occasional experiences of climate anxiety or worry are block-randomized into one of three groups: two intervention groups (intervention of expressive writing; intervention of expressive writing and behavior planning; both lasting three days, 15 minutes each day, and a booster session a week later) and waitlist control group. Main outcomes, i.e., behavioral engagement, climate change worry, and anxiety, are assessed before, immediately after, and one week after the intervention. Currently, one-third of the planned sample was involved in the experiment. It is expected that behavior planning and expressive writing will have beneficial effects on pro-environmental behavior, climate change anxiety, and worry, while expressive writing alone will have beneficial effects only on the latter two. As evidence on interventions for climate change anxiety and worry is scarce, such studies may aid theoretical and practical therapeutic developments. Interventions explored might prove to be beneficial to the outcomes of interest and provide a potentially affordable and accessible option for addressing the adverse effects of climate change on mental health.