Jenna Spitzer Around the world, many  youth are worried about climate change.   How is climate anxiety, or fear of climate  change, which can manifest in heightened   emotional or somatic distress, associated with  young people's climate-friendly behaviour? Do   young people who experience more climate anxiety  tend to engage in more climate-friendly behaviour,   or do they tend to engage in more  climate-friendly behaviour up to a   certain point, until they find such  anxiety overwhelming and disengage,   also known as eco-paralysis? Furthermore, does  this association change for young people who,   in addition to experiencing climate anxiety,  experience high levels of environmental efficacy?   That is believing that taking action can still  make a difference to mitigating climate change. To answer these questions we collected data  from three independent groups of young people   from the Netherlands and Colombia. What did  we learn? A lot. To see all the details,   check out the full publication. To summarise,  here are three main takeaways. First,   young people who experienced more climate  anxiety tended to show more climate-friendly   behaviour. Their engagement did not drop  off as they expressed more anxiety. Instead,   youth seemed capable of turning even high  levels of climate anxiety into action. Second, youth seemed especially able  to turn climate anxiety into action   when they also believed that taking  action can still make a difference.   Youth who had lower levels of environmental  efficacy engaged in less climate-friendly   behaviour, even when they expressed high  levels of concern about climate change. Third, we learned that even though the  association between climate anxiety and   climate-friendly behaviour was  linear, it was not strong. Thus,   climate anxiety is by no means the only  factor that motivates youth to engage in   climate-friendly behaviour, even though it  seems to have an overall motivating effect. With this knowledge, we hope that young people  will feel empowered to turn their concern about   climate change into action. We also hope  that parents, Teachers and governments   will be able to earn young people's trust, so  that by working together we can and will make   a difference to prevent climate change,  so young people can have a bright future. Thanks for your attention. We  are eager to hear your thoughts   and questions about this research.  If you would like to get in touch,   please feel welcome to contact our  Lead Authors, Andrik and Jenna.