International bodies such as the United Nations (UN), the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Organization for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) have warned that the COVID‐19 pandemic has made the world a yet more difficult place to be young.

The ILO report Youth & COVID‐19: Impacts on Jobs, Education, Rights and Mental Well‐Being ¹ found that nearly three‐quarters of people aged 18‐29 years reported pandemic‐related educational disruptions, one‐half described themselves as depressed, and one‐in‐six of those who were employed before the outbreak had stopped working. The effects have been worst among youth in low‐ and middle‐income countries (LMICs) and among young women everywhere, exacerbating pre‐existing inequalities.

Perversely, pandemic‐related hardship has pushed some young people prematurely into work, particularly in Asia and the Pacific region. In India and Indonesia, for instance, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), the Asian Development Bank and the ILO have jointly reported that poor households are increasingly likely to take underage children out of school to work in the home or away in cities, or to marry them off early to boost family income.

In this issue of the journal, Fusar‐Poli et al² emphasize that “universal public health approaches targeting the social determinants of mental disorders hold the greatest potential for reducing the risk profile of the whole population”. We can extend the focus on inequalities in the socioeconomic environment to incorporate the role that physical environments, built and natural, play in shaping youth mental health, and what can be done in this respect.

By May 2020, governments globally had invested over 10 trillion USD in responses to the pandemic, mostly for crisis initiatives such as furlough schemes, financial support for businesses, and the acquisition of medical supplies. The world is now talking about recovery. Scientists and major international bodies – e.g., the International Monetary Fund, the ILO, the International Energy Agency (IEA), the European Union, and the InterAcademy Partnership – have proposed a green approach to rebuilding economies.

Statista's survey of 28,000 individuals from fifteen nations, Global Green Economic Recovery Support After COVID‐19 2020 ³, found that two‐thirds want a green recovery, especially young people. The ILO has hosted a meeting of ministers from thirty countries to discuss how to “build back better”, and the UN Secretary‐General went so far as to suggest that a green recovery approach in LMICs could help post‐pandemic economic development switch from “grey to green”. The message is clear: post‐pandemic rebuilding cannot continue the over‐exploitation of the resources of the planet and its peoples – especially young people – without regard for the costs to either.

Substantial steps have been made in the right direction. The IEA's Global Energy Review 2020 found that COVID‐19 restrictions on travel reduced global carbon emissions by 8%, the kind of fall needed to keep the world within the so‐called 1.5°C guardrail beyond which global warming becomes dangerous. However, emissions have started to rise again with the relaxation of restrictions. A commitment to a green recovery, which could avoid 0.3°C warming by 2050⁴, is urgently needed.

Leading economists have identified five recovery strategies with particularly strong potential for retaining and even accelerating the emission reductions that the pandemic achieved⁵. The strategies embrace building clean physical infrastructure, retrofitting buildings, and investing in education, training, clean research and development, and natural capital. These are consistent with the WHO's six “prescriptions” for simultaneously promoting planetary and human health outlined in their Manifesto for a Healthy Recovery from COVID‐19 ⁶: protecting and preserving nature; investing in essential services for health (e.g., clean water, health care facilities); moving quickly to green energy; healthy and sustainable food systems; stopping subsidizing polluters; and building healthy cities. The UN and the World Bank note that cities are an important focus for a green recovery; the latest UN‐HABITAT report has estimated that 60% of the world's population will live in cities by 2030, and 60% of these will be children.

All of these prescriptions and strategies could support universal approaches to promoting young people's future health and prosperity, but it may seem hard to sell some of these ideas politically. However, as the WHO Manifesto points out⁶, the pandemic has shown that people can accept difficult policies where these are evidently necessary. Further, though politicians may not always listen to scientists and health experts, they listen to public opinion. The large majority of the world's adults wants action on climate change and, as the School Strike for Climate led by Greta Thunberg has shown, those under voting age can be influential.

Clinicians, researchers and their representative bodies have a role to play in persuading opinion leaders of the mental health benefits of a green recovery, especially for young people. This is challenging because its greatest benefits are not immediately obvious. Climate change and mental health are both complex phenomena and their relationship is complicated. It begins high up the causal chain, where climate change aggravates the root causes of mental illness, and ultimately involves multiple reciprocal direct and indirect linkages between a host of proximal, intervening and distal factors that lie on interacting paths of influence⁷.

Taking a systems approach to elucidating these relationships can help simplify the complexity meaningfully and shift thinking from the narrow perspective of treating illness to the bigger picture that also incorporates promoting well‐being and preventing illness. Systems thinking in this case involves mapping the factors linking climate change to mental health outcomes, from direct, pro­ximate causes to distal root causes, and specifying their interactions. For example, one effect of climate change is to increase the frequency, intensity, unpredictability and duration of extreme events, such as the wildfires that ravaged South‐Eastern Australia and California in 2020. Destruction on this scale inevitably has mental health implications that go beyond the immediately obvious, incorporating risks as diverse as significant injury or death, and losses to education and employment, cultural practices, outdoor recreation, access to fresh foods and Internet connectivity. Every one of these cascading factors, separately and interactively, is a potential threat to mental health⁷.

Young people can be highly motivated to help in health crises and can mobilize whole communities when needed. Indeed, the ILO report¹ found that, by August 2020, nearly one‐third of young people globally was engaged in pandemic‐related volunteering. They are also leading a research initiative established by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Youth As Researchers ⁸, investigating how the pandemic has affected young people.

Developing a youth‐ and mental health‐sensitive approach to COVID‐19 recovery would harness the interest, optimism, confidence and energy of young people. It would also address their yearning for a greener future. The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change's report, Listening to Covid‐19's “Lost Generation”: Insights From Our Global Youth Survey ⁹, has pointed out that young people should help design pandemic recovery pathways.

Members of older generations may feel uneasy about a climate crisis that is their collective bequest to younger cohorts, and may want to help. One thing they can do is to come together more effectively to apply the resources, capabilities and wisdom they have acquired in life to helping young people contribute to the pandemic recovery. Young people are ready to meet the challenge – their way, a green way.

联合国 (UN)、世界卫生组织 (WHO)、国际劳工组织 (ILO) 和经济合作与发展组织 (OECD) 等国际机构警告说，COVID-19 大流行已使世界是一个对年轻人来说更加困难的地方。

国际劳工组织报告《青年与 COVID-19：对就业、教育、权利和心理健康的影响》 ¹发现，近四分之三的 18-29 岁人群报告了与大流行相关的教育中断，一半的人描述自己情绪低落，疫情爆发前有工作的人中有六分之一已经停止工作。低收入和中等收入国家（LMIC）的青年以及世界各地的年轻女性受到的影响最为严重，加剧了本来就存在的不平等。

相反，与大流行相关的困难迫使一些年轻人过早地参加工作，特别是在亚洲和太平洋地区。例如，在印度和印度尼西亚，联合国儿童基金会（儿童基金会）、亚洲开发银行和国际劳工组织联合报告称，贫困家庭越来越有可能让未成年儿童辍学在家中或外出打工，或者早点把他们嫁出去，增加家庭收入。

在本期杂志中，Fusar-Poli 等人²强调“针对精神障碍社会决定因素的通用公共卫生方法最有可能降低整个人群的风险状况”。我们可以扩大对社会经济环境不平等的关注，将建筑和自然的物理环境在塑造青少年心理健康方面所发挥的作用以及在这方面可以采取的措施纳入其中。

截至 2020 年 5 月，全球各国政府已投资超过 10 万亿美元应对疫情，主要用于休假计划、企业财务支持和采购医疗用品等危机举措。世界现在正在谈论复苏。科学家和主要国际机构——例如国际货币基金组织、国际劳工组织、国际能源署（IEA）、欧盟和科学院间伙伴关系——提出了重建经济的绿色方法。

Statista 对来自 15 个国家的 28,000 人进行的调查《2020 年 COVID-19 后全球绿色经济复苏支持》 ³发现，三分之二的人希望实现绿色复苏，尤其是年轻人。国际劳工组织主办了由三十个国家组成的部长会议，讨论如何“重建得更好”，联合国秘书长甚至建议中低收入国家采取绿色复苏方法可以帮助疫情后的经济发展从“重建”转向“重建”。灰色到绿色”。传达的信息很明确：大流行后的重建不能继续过度开采地球及其人民（尤其是年轻人）的资源，而不考虑双方的成本。

已经朝着正确的方向迈出了实质性的一步。 IEA 的《2020 年全球能源评论》发现，新冠肺炎 (COVID-19) 旅行限制使全球碳排放量减少了 8%，这种下降幅度需要将世界控制在所谓的 1.5°C 范围内，超过该范围全球变暖将变得危险。然而，随着限制的放松，排放量又开始上升。我们迫切需要致力于绿色复苏，到 2050 年可以避免气温升高 0.3°C ⁴ 。

领先的经济学家已经确定了五种复苏策略，这些策略对于保持甚至加速疫情所实现的减排量具有特别强大的潜力⁵ 。这些战略包括建设清洁的有形基础设施、改造建筑物以及投资于教育、培训、清洁研发和自然资本。这些与世界卫生组织在其《从 COVID-19 中健康恢复的宣言^》中概述的同时促进地球和人类健康的六项“处方”是一致的：保护和维护自然；投资基本健康服务（例如清洁水、医疗保健设施）；快速转向绿色能源；健康和可持续的粮食系统；停止补贴污染者；和建设健康城市。联合国和世界银行指出，城市是绿色复苏的重要焦点；联合国人居署最新报告估计，到2030年，世界人口的60%将居住在城市，其中60%是儿童。

所有这些处方和策略都可以支持促进年轻人未来健康和繁荣的普遍方法，但其中一些想法似乎很难在政治上推销。然而，正如世界卫生组织宣言所指出的⁶ ，这场大流行病表明，人们可以接受显然有必要的艰难政策。此外，尽管政治家可能并不总是听取科学家和健康专家的意见，但他们会听取公众意见。世界上绝大多数成年人希望对气候变化采取行动，正如格蕾塔·桑伯格领导的学校气候罢课所表明的那样，那些未达到投票年龄的人可能具有影响力。

临床医生、研究人员及其代表机构可以发挥作用，说服意见领袖绿色复苏对心理健康有益，尤其是对年轻人而言。这是具有挑战性的，因为它的最大好处并不是立即显而易见的。气候变化和心理健康都是复杂的现象，它们之间的关系也很复杂。它始于因果链的高层，其中气候变化加剧了精神疾病的根本原因，并最终涉及位于相互作用影响路径上的一系列近端、干预和远端因素之间的多重相互直接和间接联系⁷ 。

采用系统方法来阐明这些关系可以帮助有意义地简化复杂性，并将思维从治疗疾病的狭隘视角转向更宏观的视角，包括促进福祉和预防疾病。在这种情况下，系统思维涉及绘制将气候变化与心理健康结果联系起来的因素，从直接的、近因到远端的根本原因，并具体说明它们的相互作用。例如，气候变化的影响之一是增加极端事件的频率、强度、不可预测性和持续时间，例如 2020 年肆虐澳大利亚东南部和加利福尼亚州的野火。这种规模的破坏不可避免地会产生超出心理健康范围的影响。显而易见的风险，包括严重受伤或死亡、教育和就业、文化习俗、户外娱乐、新鲜食品获取和互联网连接方面的损失等各种风险。这些级联因素中的每一个，无论是单独的还是相互作用的，都是对心理健康的潜在威胁⁷ 。

年轻人可以高度积极地帮助应对健康危机，并可以在需要时动员整个社区。事实上，国际劳工组织的报告¹发现，到 2020 年 8 月，全球近三分之一的年轻人参与了与流行病相关的志愿服务。他们还领导了联合国教育、科学及文化组织（教科文组织）发起的一项研究计划“青年研究人员^8” ，调查这一流行病如何影响年轻人。

制定一种对青年和心理健康敏感的 COVID-19 康复方法将利用年轻人的兴趣、乐观、信心和能量。它还将满足他们对绿色未来的渴望。托尼·布莱尔全球变化研究所的报告《聆听 Covid‐19 的“失落的一代”：全球青年调查的见解^9》指出，年轻人应该帮助设计大流行病恢复途径。

老一辈人可能会对气候危机感到不安，因为气候危机是他们留给年轻一代的集体遗产，并且可能想提供帮助。他们可以做的一件事就是更有效地聚集在一起，运用他们在生活中获得的资源、能力和智慧来帮助年轻人为大流行病的恢复做出贡献。年轻人已准备好迎接挑战——他们的方式，绿色的方式。