Extreme weather doesn’t only destroy homes and livelihoods: it erodes people’s sense of safety and their ability to envision the future. A first-of-its-kind summit facilitated by Unthinkable and partners aims to build the field equipped to respond.

The psychological impacts of climate change are cumulative and enduring, compounded by misinformation, political division, and long-standing injustices. Survivors face cascading disasters, chronic stress, and persistent trauma that ripples through communities. And yet the professionals working to address these impacts — therapists, community health workers, researchers, activists — have largely been working in isolation, without a shared strategic vision, common standards of practice, or a coordinated approach to reaching the communities most in need.

The American Climate-Mental Health Summit is designed to change that. Convened by the Climate Care Collaborative, a coalition of eight leading climate-mental health organizations, the Summit will bring together practitioners, researchers, academics, and community leaders for the first in-person gathering of its kind. Attendees will work toward forming a diverse and representative coalition capable of advocacy and collaboration; assessing the most critical unmet community needs; and identifying sustainable, accessible models of practice for professionals working at both the individual and community levels.

Following the Summit, conveners will publish an open-access report serving as a living document for the emerging field. It will cover climate-mental health impacts, best practices for prevention and response, a coalition-based fundraising strategy, and a network model of care designed to reach disproportionately affected populations including elders, youth, people with disabilities, immigrants, and BIPOC communities. 

Working groups will build toward a longer-term vision that includes training climate-aware community health practitioners and integrating climate-mental health practices into schools, workplaces, and public health systems. A field guide bridging the gap between technical experts and first responders is also in development.

CO2 Foundation supports this project because we recognize that the mental health dimensions of extreme weather are among the least visible and least funded aspects of climate impact and among the most consequential for communities’ long-term capacity to recover and adapt. This Summit is a meaningful step toward building the infrastructure the field needs to meet that challenge at scale.