Young, angry, and betrayed

In 2024, when the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) released “Navigating New Horizons: A Global Foresight Report on Planetary Health and Human Wellbeing,” it warned of an emerging crisis gripping the world’s young: Eco-anxiety, also described as climate grief. It is a negative emotional response to the threats posed by environmental degradation and climate change. The UNEP report called climate anxiety among young people “a crisis in plain sight”, warning of “an emotional catastrophe being visited on the next generations.”

Evidence of this unease is widespread. Down To Earth conducted an opinion survey in October-November 2025, among over 300 people aged 16-25 years—the first generation of the 21st century. It shows how entrenched eco-anxiety has become. Nearly 88 per cent of respondents said they felt the climate is changing around them; 67 per cent said these changes were already affecting their daily lives and lifestyles.

Climatic studies tracking the changes suggest that those born in the past 25 years may have never experienced a “normal” climate. From heatwaves to cyclones to floods, the planet’s pulse has changed, and young people are feeling it more than ever. “The climate currently behaves like an athlete on steroids,” says Erich Fischer, a senior scientist at Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science, ETH Zurich and a lead author of the UN’s climate science assessments. Scientists at Climate Central, an international association of scientists and journalists reporting and researching climate change, note that anyone born in and after February 1986 has not experienced a single month with normal temperature; each month since has been warmer than the average.

What changes do the young associate with climate change? In the opinion survey, nine symptoms, ranging from unseasonal weather to warmer climate to more insects and pests, were listed for respondents to tick with the option of selecting more than one. More than two-thirds of respondents associated climate change with warmer temperature and unseasonal heat or rainfall. Nearly 40 per cent linked it to smoggy or foggy days, while 36 per cent cited “change in food quality” as one of the climate manifestations. Extreme cold was identified by 38 per cent respondents as another manifestation of climate change, and 32 per cent reported experiencing an increase in insects and pests.