Coping for Climate Resilience: Climate Emotions, Empathy, and Nature Connectedness Predict Patterns of Pro-Environmental Behavior and Impairment in Adolescents

In the face of climate change, today’s young people need to balance the challenges of being active and maintaining mental health. This study investigated climate resilience, meaning patterns of climate engagement and mental health among adolescents. Using latent profile analysis, we identified three profiles in a sample of N=603 Swedish adolescents: climate-resilient (17%, active and not impaired), climate-vulnerable (10%, active but slightly impaired), and climate-disengaged (73%, neither active nor impaired). Hierarchical multinomial logistic regression analysis revealed that climate emotions predicted belonging to those profiles, with the climate-resilient profile characterized by strong climate sadness and anger and low climate indifference. Relative to the climate-resilient profile, adolescents in the climate-vulnerable profile felt more anxious about climate change, while adolescents in the climate-disengaged profile felt more indifferent and less anxious, sad, and angry. Relative to the climate-resilient group, reporting less empathic concern predicted membership in the climate-vulnerable profile, suggesting a protective role of empathic concern, while reporting less nature connectedness predicted belonging to the climate-disengaged profile. However, interaction analyses revealed that stronger nature connectedness was a vulnerability factor for belonging to the climate-vulnerable profile. These findings provide tentative evidence that fostering empathy may contribute to resilience in the face of climate change. This seems more important than ever to understand, given the severity of the progressing climate crisis and high climate disengagement among youth.