Two years ago, our community came together around a shared idea: we needed a place to bring the science of climate and environmental change and brain health into one conversation. We wanted that knowledge to be open to everyone and to help move us toward research, policy, and action. What began as an ambitious idea grew into something we could build together.
On September 24, 2026, during New York Climate Week, we had the joy of launching The Impact of Climate and Environmental Change on Brain Health: Neuro Climate Science and Policy Report. Nearly 50 contributors from across our international community helped shape it, bringing together neuroscience, clinical care, public health, policy, lived experience, and youth perspectives. Seeing so many people share their knowledge and time so generously was one of the most meaningful parts of this journey.
At the heart of the report is a simple yet powerful message: our brains depend on the environments around us, yet brain health has too often been absent from climate policy. We are proud that our community has helped make this connection more visible, and especially proud that the report points to what we can do together to protect people and build resilience.
Six interconnected pathways, and a lifespan perspective
The report synthesizes evidence across six areas of exposure:
Extreme heat, which can impair attention, sleep, executive function, mental wellbeing, and neurological health.
Extreme weather and disasters, which can cause injury, displacement, trauma, and lasting disruptions to care and community life.
Air pollution, associated with stroke, neurodevelopmental harm, dementia, and cognitive decline.
Food insecurity and malnutrition, especially consequential for brain development early in life.
Soil and water contamination, including neurotoxic exposures such as lead, mercury, arsenic, and pesticides.
Vector-borne disease, whose changing distribution can bring acute and chronic neurological complications.
These risks can accumulate over a lifetime, and they are not distributed equally. Children, pregnant people, older adults, Indigenous communities, displaced people, and those living with neurological or mental health conditions may face disproportionate harm and fewer resources to adapt.
Importantly, this is not only a report about damage. It includes a research agenda, a policy framework, global case studies, lived-experience and youth perspectives, and an action roadmap for researchers, clinicians, schools, cities, governments, funders, and communities. Cleaner air, safer and cooler neighborhoods, resilient health systems, and stronger social connections are climate actions that can also help protect the brain.
Watching the conversation travel
One of the happiest surprises since the launch has been seeing the report find its way into so many different conversations. It has already received more than 2,500 views and 500 downloads, but what means the most to us is seeing people share the work, ask questions, and connect it to the challenges in their own communities.
From Initiatives News in Mauritania to Gazeta Wyborcza in Poland, and from KOTA Territory News in the United States to Big3Africa, journalists have helped bring the connection between climate change and brain health to audiences across borders and languages. The wider science has also reached readers of BBC Science Focus, which featured our founder discussing what extreme heat does to the brain. It is wonderful to see this conversation growing in places we could not have reached on our own.
We have felt that same excitement seeing the work shared by people who help others make sense of climate change and its human impacts. Britt Wray’s Unthinkable brought the climate–brain connection to readers thinking deeply about emotional wellbeing on a warming planet. Moms Clean Air Force connected it with families and clean-air advocacy, while Climate and Health News helped introduce the report to more people working at the intersection of climate and health. We are so grateful to the writers and advocates who have taken the time to read, share, and build on this work.
A particularly special moment came when Bill McKibben highlighted our report in The Crucial Years. As a leading voice in the climate movement, his attention meant a great deal to our growing community. Seeing that mention travel further through Apaçık Radyo in Türkiye and United Methodist Insight was another reminder that brain health has a place in the wider climate story. We have also loved sharing the story in longer conversations, including Climate Magic on KHSU, which explored what neuroscience can tell us about life on a changing planet. Every interview, article, and thoughtful exchange helps bring more people into this work.
And of course, not all of this momentum comes with a headline. It comes from educators sharing the report with students, clinicians seeing its relevance to patients, youth advocates bringing it into their organizing, and members introducing it to new collaborators. Those everyday acts of connection and generosity are harder to count, but they are at the heart of what NCWG is building.
From scientific synthesis to policy change
Alongside the report, we were delighted to publish a complementary peer-reviewed policy commentary in One Earth: Brain Health: The Blind Spot in Climate Policy. Together, these contributions make the case for including neurological and mental health in climate mitigation, adaptation, and economic planning. We hope the evidence will help open doors to more effective and equitable action.
It has been encouraging to see the policy message resonate too, including through a University of Chicago feature exploring why brain health has been overlooked in climate policy. For our community, the report and the policy paper are tools we can keep sharing and strengthening as we work with others toward change.
What comes next
This is only the beginning. At COP31, NCWG members and partners will bring these conversations into spaces where climate decisions are being shaped, with a focus on children’s development, mental health, equity, and resilience. We are especially excited that our Youth Council will launch its COP31 Youth Statement on Brain Health and Climate Change, bringing young people’s experiences, priorities, and leadership into the conversation.
We are also taking the next steps together through research collaborations such as Brain-CLIMA in Latin America, community-grounded resilience projects, educational initiatives, and ongoing policy engagement. There is so much to learn, and so much we can accomplish by bringing different disciplines and communities together.
To everyone who contributed to the report, our authors, reviewers, case-study and lived-experience contributors, young colleagues, designers, partners, and the wider NCWG community, thank you. This achievement belongs to all of you. We are proud of what we have built together, grateful for the generosity that brought us here, and excited about the many people and possibilities still ahead.
Healthy brains need a healthy planet. And a healthy planet needs healthy brains.
Read the report · Explore the web summary · Read the One Earth policy paper · Browse NCWG resources