Panu has explored the wide variety of emotions about environmental issues: he has written a whole book on eco-emotions in Finnish, and one of his most influential research articles focuses on the variety of climate emotions.

Panu’s work influenced the creation of the Climate Emotions Wheel, a popular visualization of climate emotions. The website of the publisher, Climate Mental Health Network, offers many useful resources, such as an emoji version and a Guide to Climate Emotions written by Panu with the help of Anya Kamenetz.

Together with other scholars, Panu has studied climate emotions also empirically, especially among environmentally active people. He helped to design a Finnish national survey on climate emotions in 2019, as well as the famous international research article on the topic by Hickman, Marks, et al. (2021).

Panu has written guidelines for engaging with climate emotions for various professionals, including youth workers and therapists.

His research articles on the topic include:

* Pihkala, P. (2022). Toward a Taxonomy of Climate Emotions. Frontiers in Climate, 3. https://doi.org/10.3389/fclim.2021.738154

* Coppola, I., & Pihkala, P. (2023). Complex dynamics of climate emotions among environmentally active Finnish and American young people. Frontiers in Political Science, 4. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2022.1063741

* Cairns, J., & Pihkala, P. (2024, in press). How Western Buddhist climate activists negotiate climate emotions. Frontiers in Psychology.