Ecological grief is growing — and our current approach to climate change education isn’t keeping pace. There has been a surge in climate emotion research globally, documenting widespread experiences of fear, grief, anxiety and hopelessness. New findings suggest the way we approach climate change education may be harming young people rather than helping them to face this grief head on.In this articles, we share insights from 39 young people about how they experience climate education in a rapidly changing world and how we can change it for the better. Young people aged 16 to 34International research has shown that youth want educational spaces that support discussions around the emotional impacts of climate change. Our research with young people aged 16 to 34 backs this up while also revealing their desire for community-based climate conversations and approaches that focus on how they experience ecological crises. In 2025, we held seven online discussion groups inspired by a “climate café” model designed to offer space for people to share their climate emotions. Groups of up to nine young people from various places in Ontario were invited to tell us about everyday climate emotions and how they typically learn about climate change. We recruited participants via the University of Guelph’s research web page and through social media channels and community networks. Participating youth self-represented using diverse identities and social locations. Thirty-four of 39 participants identified as racialized. Three people among this group identified as both racialized and Indigenous from another country. The remaining five participants identified as white. Some participants described learning about climate change by volunteering with community groups. Participants described learning about climate change in school as a one-off “unit” or “topic,” often given “surface-level treatment.”Going beyond the ‘carbon footprint’This reflects significant fragmentation between Canadian climate policy and provincial education curricula. Even in provinces and territories playing leadership roles in climate policy, education policy minimally addresses climate change. Although the Ontario Ministry of Education has committed to embedding learning about the environment, many participants described an educational focus on individual habits alone, such as recycling. Many reported that classroom climate lessons were reduced to “carbon footprints.”Popularized by British Petroleum, carbon footprint approaches reframe climate responsibility as a matter of personal lifestyle management and consumer choice rather than systemic transformation.The carbon footprint encourages guilt and personal self-regulation, and for this reason has been critiqued as “petro pedagogy” — climate education either directly sponsored by or shaped by fossil fuel company interests that normalizes fossil fuel dependence. Such approaches put the responsibility for change on individuals rather than on the broader drivers of climate injustice, such as fossil fuel extraction and capitalism. One participant emphasized that carbon-footprint education levies “a disconnect between the practice and the theory” that “doesn’t really do justice to the climate.”What happens when emotion is left out?Climate education shaped by fossil fuel companies operates most effectively under the guise of neutrality — characteristically avoiding emotion and making climate lessons seem unbiased. Read more: How the oil and gas industry influences higher education It considers the climate as a problem for later, not now. Such forecasting distances young people from present-day ecological realities. For example, recent wildfires in Canada have brought disproportionate emotional distress and cultural disconnection to First Nations, Métis and Inuit people. As the United Nations notes, ecological grief is unevenly felt across communities. Yet, current educational approaches tend to ignore Indigenous worldviews, putting humans — rather than our relationships with and the well-being of land, plants and non-human animals — at the centre of the learning.Research has found that while “neutral” educational approaches aim to motivate action, they may inadvertently generate guilt, disengagement or emotional withdrawal when young people are asked to confront crises beyond their control.Young people in our study described feeling helpless, guilty, exhausted, overwhelmed and morally accountable for climate disasters. As a result of their own ecological grief and depleted emotional capacity, many youth described coping with the climate crisis through avoidance. Some tried “blocking it out” or “cocooning” by, for example, avoiding watching the news or ignoring current events. Beginning with griefIn our study, we bring young people’s suggestions to a focal point: climate education must move away from individual blame and include emotions.When asked how they would like to learn about climate change differently, participants described a politicized form of climate education rooted in emotion and relationality. They also want conversations to happen outside of the classroom, in their immediate communities. As one participant put it, this simply means being “on the same wavelength” as others experiencing nearby climate-related events.Climate education that meets these criteria must be grief-facing. Beginning with grief means recognizing the disenfranchisement of climate emotions as part of the disproportionate impact young people feel when it comes to climate change.Often climate emotions are seen as mental-health issues to be managed, rather than as reasonable responses to social and political failures. Yet, one participant in our study questioned this logic, asking:“How can we ‘mental health’ somebody out of climate change? I don’t think that makes sense.” Following the tenets of critical grief educational work, climate-based grief approaches begin by creating structured opportunities for students to share their experiences without demanding a “cure” for their difficult emotions. Climate emotions can be recognized as expected and appropriate responses to the crises young people face. A grief-facing approach situates current climate events within broader histories of colonialism and injustice that lead to its disproportionate impact. It also involves deep rest, which means making space for young people to withdraw — or “cocoon” — as necessary care when it comes to emotion overload. Leading climate education with emotionPerhaps most importantly, we have learned from young people that future climate learning can be scientific, but it must also be attentive to emotion and approached as a shared social, ethical and emotional challenge. This can happen in schools and the broader community.Opening conversations with youth about the anxiety, grief, anger and other emotions may lead to broader research about climate change’s uneven impact.Climate emotions emerge not only from anticipating human futures, but also from witnessing the loss of ecosystems, species and life — something young people are experiencing right now. New forms of climate education, including grief-facing approaches, should involve those directly affected by these issues, including youth.Kimberlee Collins receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.Carla Rice receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Chelsea Jones receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.