Psychology and the climate emergency

Abstract

The climate emergency is rapidly intensifying, and urgent action to safeguard the future of life on earth is imperative (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC], 2021). Nowhere will be unaffected by the dramatic impacts of climate change, such as climate change–exacerbated disas-ters, economic devastation, and social upheaval (IPCC, 2022). Climate change is centrally shaping ecologies and society’s health and psychological well-being on a planetary scale. A crisis that some 20 years ago may have seemed disparate and hard to measure in our daily lives is now intersecting with all areas of life, compounding hardships and igniting social action. When we, as Special Issue Guest Editors, published South African Journal of Psychology ’s (SAJP) call for papers during the 2021 UN Climate Summit in Glasgow, we already knew that psychology has been responding to the climate emergency. A growing number of Special Issues have addressed different aspects of psychology and climate change, some of which we have also worked on in the past (Barnes et al., 2022; Fernandes-Jesus et al., 2020). We know that there is a great appetite for spaces to highlight how psychology is being used around the world in different ways.In our original call, we were seeking pragmatic papers related to psychological impacts of climate change; experiences of climate-exacerbated disasters; risk perceptions; resilience and adapta-tion; engaging governments, extractive and fossil fuel industries; public education and curriculum development; evaluating novel interventions; clinical case studies (intervention, group or commu-nity); community mobilisation; ethical case studies (e.g., engaging with statutory bodies); climate activism; climate psychologies’ roles supporting climate action; and climate inequities and mental health.