The need and opportunities for mental health integration into global climate negotiations

Increasing evidence shows how climate change is impacting mental health by increasing the risk of new mental health challenges, exacerbating existing ones and increasing the vulnerability of people living with mental health challenges to morbidity and mortality. Conversely, efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change offer opportunities to strengthen the conditions for mental health and wellbeing. Thus, climate policies should consider the far-reaching impacts of climate change on mental health and the mental health benefits of climate action. Until recently, mental health was largely absent from high-level climate policy discourse. This is changing; the 28th United Nations Climate Conference hosted the first-ever Health Day, and mental health was integrated into the Climate and Health Declaration adopted by 151 countries. This paper discusses the relevance of multilateral climate processes to mental health and the mental health community’s role in ensuring that both mental and physical health are considered across all relevant climate negotiation streams. In this Perspective, the authors detail some of the ways that mental health has been incorporated in high-level climate policy discussions and explore how the prominence of mental health could be promoted in climate agendas.