Rebekah Garza | December 9, 2025

Figure 1. A ray of light falls upon a felled tree on the forest floor. (Source: Rebekah Garza.)

Climate grief, a term recently popularized in the media, is a sense of loss or anticipated future loss of species, landscapes, and human livelihood due to environmental degradation and rising global temperatures. It’s often associated with younger generations, who grew up in the era of climate change, and who feel disenfranchised in the face of the dramatic changes they’ve seen in the natural world and their own communities during their lifetimes [1]. 

Today, there is an overwhelming amount of negative coverage of environmental issues and, this year especially, the field of climate science. We are constantly inundated with information about climate disasters and land degradation, policy failures, and new waves of climate denial. Just recently Hurricane Melissa, a Category 5 hurricane, devastated the Caribbean. Experts suggested that ocean temperatures 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than average caused what might have been a Category 4 hurricane to become dangerous Category 5 as it struck land [2,3]. Global efforts are currently off-track to meet the 2030 emissions reduction goals to limit temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius [4]. Federal budget cuts have slashed research funding by over 25%, particularly targeting climate sciences [5]. More urgently, USAID cut 83% of foreign aid programs, projected to cost up to 14 million lives globally [6]. Everywhere we look, we only see our failures. Ultimately, this leads to a spiral of burnout, despair, frustration, and hopelessness. How can we persevere in the face of humiliation, destruction, and death? How can we as individuals stay motivated in a fight that feels so much bigger than us?

The truth is that we are made to see only one half of reality. Media coverage is biased towards highlighting our shortcomings, but we fail to recognize and appreciate the hard work and effort of millions of climate activists, innovators, policymakers, scientists, and humanitarians. Their hard-earned successes are real, and they’ve made positive changes to our world that deserve recognition. Seeking news from Climate Solutions journalism outlets is one approach to improving the public’s sense of efficacy towards the climate crisis. Here are some climate successes that may have gone overlooked in recent news cycles: 

• Global renewable energy generation increased massively in 2024, bringing the world’s zero-carbon sourced electricity to 40% of total production [7]. 
• Clean energy investments in 2024 reached over $2 trillion, double that of fossil fuels [8].
• Solar and wind growth exceeded new energy demands in the first half of 2025 by 109% [9]. 
• Illinois recently passed the Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act to improve grid-scale energy storage [10]. 
• After the recent COP30 conference, newly updated climate plans pledged by 113 countries are projected to reduce global emissions rates to 12% below 2019 levels within the next decade, effectively changing the trajectory of historical emissions patterns [11].
• In addition to curbing emissions, climate solutions have benefited global health outcomes too. Investments in climate resilience infrastructure in Bangladesh has saved potentially thousands of lives over recent decades [12].

Figure 2. Activists at the Pittsburgh Earth Day Climate Strike on 4/22/22. (Source: Mark Dixon via Wikipedia.)

Climate optimists urge us to shift the current narrative by viewing climate optimism as a radical act [13]. A collective 89% of people globally seek stronger climate action, but are caught in a “spiral of silence,” due to a false belief that they are in the minority [14]. Rather than buying into hopelessness and disappointment, we should instead become excited and invested in the work that is still to be done. We should be able to speak out about our climate concerns and grief, knowing that the vast majority of the world stands behind us. Other climate activists, such as Greta Thunberg, exemplify how supporting climate action goes hand in hand with humanitarianism. As the effects of climate change disproportionately affect vulnerable communities, disaster and displacement relief and other forms of global aid are increasingly important and tangible ways to mitigate the climate crisis. 

In order to regain climate hope, we must center ourselves in the current moment, acknowledging that this fight is a difficult one, but one worth fighting. Though there may be disagreement on which goals to prioritize in the climate fight, it is obvious that there are as many different challenges to approach as there are dedicated people to conquer them. In the spirit of hope, I leave you with the words of Terry Tempest Williams (2019), “Rather than anchoring our hope beyond the struggle, always projecting ahead, perhaps locating joy within the struggle through our full presence can be our essential gesture at this moment in time. To feel the pain of now and not look away.” [15]

References

[1] Cunsolo, Ashlee, and Neville R. Ellis. “Ecological Grief as a Mental Health Response to Climate Change-Related Loss.” Nature News, April 3, 2018. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0092-2.

[2] Freedman, Andrew. “Why Hurricane Melissa Turned into a Supercharged Monster.” CNN, October 29, 2025. https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/29/climate/ocean-warming-effect-hurricane-melissa.

[3] “Melissa Reaches Category 5 — Fueled by Climate Change-Driven Ocean Heat | Climate Central.” 2025. Climatecentral.org. 2025. https://www.climatecentral.org/climate-shift-index-alert/Hurricane-Melissa.

[4] IPCC. 2022. “The Evidence Is Clear: The Time for Action Is Now. We Can Halve Emissions by 2030. — IPCC.” IPCC. April 4, 2022. https://www.ipcc.ch/2022/04/04/ipcc-ar6-wgiii-pressrelease/.

[5] Burdick, Alan. 2025. “A Crushing Year for Science in America.” The New York Times, October 9, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/09/climate/lost-science-newsletter.html.

‌[6] Lambert, Jonathan. 2025. “Study: 14 Million Lives Could Be Lost due to Trump Aid Cuts.” NPR. July 2025. https://www.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2025/07/01/nx-s1-5452513/trump-usaid-foreign-aid-deaths.

‌[7] Ember. 2025. “Global Electricity Review 2025 | Ember.” Ember. April 8, 2025. https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-electricity-review-2025/.

‌[8] Purton, Michael. 2024. “A Just Transition Is Vital as Clean Energy Investment Hits $2tn.” World Economic Forum. August 28, 2024. https://www.weforum.org/stories/2024/08/clean-energy-investment-just-transition/.

‌[9] “Global Electricity Mid-Year Insights 2025 | Ember.” 2025. Ember. October 7, 2025. https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/global-electricity-mid-year-insights-2025/.

‌[10] “Illinois Lawmakers Just Passed Another Big Clean-Energy Bill.” 2025. Canary Media. canarymedia. October 31, 2025. https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/energy-storage/illinois-pass-clean-reliable-grid-bill.

[11] United Nations. “Message to Parties and Observers Nationally Determined Contributions Synthesis Report -Update.” 2025. https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/message_to_parties_and_observers_ndc_synthesis_report_update.pdf

[12] “Bangladesh Has Become Much More Resilient to Cyclones, Saving Many Lives.” 2020. Our World in Data. 2020. https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/bangladesh-has-become-much-more-resilient-to-cyclones-saving-many-lives.

[13] Hayhoe, Katharine, and Anne Therese Gennari. 2025. “Why Optimism Is a Radical Act.” Substack.com. Talking Climate. October 30, 2025. https://substack.com/inbox/post/177379184.

[14] Carrington, Damian. 2025. “Activate Climate’s ‘Silent Majority’ to Supercharge Action, Experts Say.” The Guardian. The Guardian. April 22, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/apr/22/activate-climate-silent-majority-support-supercharge-action.

[15] Williams, Terry Tempest. Erosion: Essays of Undoing. Sarah Crichton Books, 2019.