Debate: Inequalities within understanding of Eco Distress

Increased attention and youth action on Climate Change have increased global societal awareness of the climate crisis. However, this has not come without a cost, lack of international political action and increased media attention towards climate change has triggered a surge in young people experiencing Eco Distress. I discuss how increased levels of Eco Distress experienced by young people has uncovered vast inequalities within child and adolescent mental health provision and research across the globe, which follow geopolitical and Economic divides formed during the colonial period. I also discuss how psychiatrists can embrace different knowledge systems and collaborate across socio-political barriers, to support and enable equality in the access of mental health care for all young people, regardless of location in helping manage Eco Distress or climate-related worries. I conclude this piece by suggesting actions which psychiatrists can undertake to show themselves to be allies with young people, in not only tackling climate change, but systemic inequality harboured in child and adolescent mental health care.