Chapter 04 · People & supply chainsHuman Rights & Social Sustainability
Climate grief
Definition
Grief arising from losses specifically tied to climate change — a subset of ecological grief, defined by Cunsolo and Ellis as the grief felt in relation to experienced or anticipated ecological losses, including the loss of species, ecosystems and meaningful landscapes due to acute or chronic environmental change. Three loss types evoke it: past physical ecological loss, loss of environmental knowledge and identity, and anticipated future loss.
References
Cunsolo & Ellis definition; three loss types; evidence-base state; relation to solastalgia and mental health.
Climate grief as climate-specific subset of ecological grief; affected groups; grief-to-action pathway.
Overview
What it means
Climate grief names a real, researched psychological response — distinct from climate anxiety (fear of future harm) in that it mourns losses already occurring or inevitably approaching. It is most documented among people with close ties to land — Indigenous communities, farmers, nature-based workers — and among climate scientists and activists, but extends to anyone confronting anticipated loss.
It is often described as "disenfranchised grief": socially unacknowledged, without rituals or collective frameworks for mourning ecological loss, which compounds isolation. Research also links acknowledged grief to values clarification and climate action — grief as a potential wellspring of engagement rather than only a health burden. The evidence base remains young and largely qualitative.
How it is used
Mental-health practitioners recognise climate grief in climate-aware therapy; workplace and university sustainability programmes address emotional dimensions; community rituals (glacier funerals, species memorials) emerge as collective responses; the concept informs just-transition thinking about cultural loss.
Why it matters
Climate change is a grief-generating process as much as a physical one; naming and legitimising that grief is part of building psychologically resilient — and politically engaged — societies.