I think when we look at the research, the mental health impacts come from many angles, but the biggest one is this: when you don’t have a government you can rely on to protect you after a climate event, you become much more aware of your own helplessness.

If there’s a flood, for example, you’re not instinctively thinking the government will fix the roads in two weeks, repair the infrastructure, or provide enough financial support to help people recover while they can’t work or access healthcare.

So when people — especially in places like Nigeria — talk about their fears, a lot of it comes from lived experience. I don’t want to simply call it corruption, but rather a lack of trust, especially among young people, that the government will respond effectively when crises happen.

If that infrastructure and policy framework existed, people would feel safer in moments of instability.

And on the other hand, sometimes government and policy decisions can actually add to the anxiety — especially when authorities come down heavy-handed and start making decisions for farmers or people whose livelihoods depend on the land.

I was speaking to a young person from Northern Nigeria, where they’re experiencing extreme drought, and he said it affects farmers deeply — yet they’re not brought into decision-making. Policies and adaptation tools are introduced to them rather than with them. They’re not in the room to say, “This is what we actually need,” or, “This is what fits our context.”

Often, policymakers expect people to speak a certain way or have a specific type of technical knowledge, which reinforces the idea that decisions should be made for them. But lived experience is a skill and a form of expertise — especially for farmers who have worked the same land for generations and have seen its changes firsthand.

If governments truly respected that knowledge, they would bring these communities into the decision-making process. But they don’t — and the result is policies that don’t help the people they’re supposed to help.

I think when it comes to mental health and climate change, the research is growing a lot. It’s not as extensive as some other fields, but it has expanded significantly over the last five years. And honestly, there’s already enough to prove that the issue exists. There’s enough data to show that people do need mental health support.

But mental health research is often qualitative — it’s about feelings, experiences, and wellbeing. Because of that, it’s sometimes not taken as seriously as data that can be “proven” through different scientific methods. For me, it doesn’t feel like we need ten more years of research to validate what people are already experiencing. It feels like decision-makers need to recognise that this is just as important as the other things they prioritise. And I’m still not sure what exactly will make them understand that.

Maybe they need to see the monetary benefits of investing in people’s mental health — but I don’t think that should be the reason we care. It’s worrying when the argument becomes: “We should care because if people are depressed, they can’t work.” That shouldn’t be the benchmark for whether someone deserves support.

People’s mental health should not be tied to the economic productivity of a country. Good mental health and wellbeing should be a right, regardless of whether someone is employed or contributing to GDP. And in the context of climate change, mental health recovery is incredibly important. Without support, people may turn to addiction, or feel so overwhelmed — unable to feed their families or manage their crops — that they question whether they want to continue living.

For me, that is more than enough reason to care. We should support people simply because they are people, not because of how much money they produce for a country.

Many people talk about the climate crisis as a crisis multiplier or a risk multiplier, rather than something that creates problems entirely on its own. And I do think that’s true. Climate change exacerbates poverty. If you’re already unsure about your income, climate impacts make that insecurity much worse.

For example, when I was speaking to a girl in Zambia, she explained that so much of the country’s electricity comes from hydropower. When water levels drop, the power goes out. If you’re working in a salon and that’s your main source of income, you simply can’t do your job without electricity. So if you’re already earning very little, losing that income pushes you even deeper into low-income living.

Electricity poverty, which already exists, is made worse by climate change. Food insecurity, which is already a challenge in many African countries, is made worse by climate change. On a foundational level, there is already so much inequality — and then climate change comes on top of that without the right policies to help people adapt or feel like they can survive and thrive in a changing environment. It just makes everything worse.

If we had a basic level of rights secured for everyone — access to water, education, and healthy development — then when climate change impacts hit, people wouldn’t be left with absolutely nothing. They would at least have a foundation to stand on, even if they can’t progress further until recovery happens.

But for many countries in the Global South, that foundation doesn’t exist. That’s where the intersectionality really shows

I think that’s such a good question, because as a diaspora person you’re in this liminal space — you belong to two countries, but in each place you have a completely different experience. When I'm in Nigeria, I'm so aware of my privilege. But then in the UK, to certain groups, I’m not seen as British.

Even when we talk about climate anxiety, a lot of conversations in the UK are focused on things like, “I’m scared of the rain,” but I know that in Nigeria when it rains, it’s nothing like here. Everything stops. Elders get sick in ways they wouldn’t if they had proper healthcare. So I sometimes feel this guilt — even though I work in Africa, I’m doing that work from here, and I don’t fully understand what people are going through or the exact context they’re living in.

That’s when I realised I don’t always deserve to have the voice. My role is often to amplify voices — to pass on knowledge to people who have the lived experience but maybe need more tools or access to take up space in global conversations.

And then, when I’m here — for example, working at The Guardian or Carbon Brief — I ask myself: How can I bring those stories into UK spaces where people don’t think about these impacts in the same way? That’s where privilege becomes a blessing. When you’re aware of it, you can use it to be a bridge — bringing those stories forward and showing that these experiences are just as important as the everyday lives of people here.

As a diaspora person, you feel that so clearly — the responsibility of bridging worlds.

The term eco-anxiety is a Western term. But before colonisation — and unfortunately, so much of that knowledge has been lost — there were different ways of describing those same feelings.

Especially in Nigerian, Igbo traditions, community was central. You had community gatherings, which still happen today, where people come together to discuss the issues affecting them. There was an understanding that it takes all of us to find the solution we need.

So when these climate and mental-health concepts are framed in Western terms, it becomes harder to create solutions that speak directly to our contexts back home. From what I’ve been researching, many of these solutions already existed. There were longstanding adaptation methods, ways of living with nature, ways of understanding ourselves in relation to the environment. We could draw from that — and build on it — to make sense of climate impacts today.

But if we keep telling ourselves, even unconsciously, that the “best” knowledge systems come from the West, then we fail to recognise the richness of what already exists — and in some cases, what’s richer than the imported frameworks.

For example, when I was being taught in the UK about value systems for water, I remember thinking: this is not new. Many cultures across the Global South have long-standing traditions of honouring water — understanding it as a living entity, not just a resource. These philosophies already offer so much.

So it’s not about inventing something new. It’s about reminding ourselves that throughout history, we were taught to believe certain people “know less,” and in doing so we’ve diminished knowledge that is deep, rich, and completely relevant today.

I'm not a climate scientist, so I can't say this in the most technical way, but the main issue is that weather patterns are changing — and the changes are severe.

In the past, for example, it might have rained in February for a predictable amount of time with a predictable intensity. Now, it might rain for two or three months straight, and the rainfall is much heavier because of increased condensation and pollution in the air.

The same applies to droughts. There have always been seasons with less rain or higher temperatures, but now those periods are getting even hotter and lasting far longer. The seasons don’t shift when they’re supposed to.

A farmer explained it perfectly:
“When it rains, it rains at the wrong time. When the plants need water, they don’t get it — and when they finally do get rain, it’s too much for them to handle. And when it’s dry, it’s dry at the wrong time, so the crops can’t grow when they usually would.”

So the seasons still exist, but they’ve become more extreme, more unpredictable, and more destructive — and that’s the core challenge.