Kamala Harris told attendees at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Gala on Oct. 14 that young Americans are increasingly hesitant to have children because of “climate anxiety.”

The event was held at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., where Harris linked the fear of future environmental changes to declining birth rates among younger generations.

“They are experiencing what they’ve coined ‘climate anxiety,’ which is their fear that because of changing in extreme weather that the future of their lives is very much at stake,” Harris said.

“My goddaughter, who’s a junior in college right now, was crying to me just two days ago, worried about ‘what is the world gonna be for me, auntie,’ she said, ‘when I want to have kids. Should I even be thinking about having children?’ That’s on top of unaffordable — not for her but for so many in that generation, they don’t aspire to own a home. They don’t believe it’s within their reach.”

And who gave them that anxiety, Ma’am? https://t.co/vijqaKZpSg

— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) October 17, 2025

Harris, who has long advocated for aggressive climate policies and has received endorsements from environmental organizations, tied her remarks to broader generational concerns.

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Her comments mirrored earlier statements made during a 2020 appearance at Reading Area Community College in Reading, Pennsylvania, where she cited conversations with “young leaders” expressing similar fears.

“I’ve heard young leaders talk with me about a term they’ve coined called ‘climate anxiety,’” Harris said at the time.

🚨WATCH: Resurfaced video shows Kamala Harris suggesting that young people should not have children due to climate change

She calls climate anxiety “the fear of the future and the unknown of whether it makes sense for you to even think about having children.” pic.twitter.com/i7z7MY09yM

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) July 27, 2024

“Because young people said, ‘We’re not leaving it to other people to decide how we’re dealing with the climate crisis.’”

In that appearance, she expanded on the idea, describing “climate anxiety” as the “fear of the future and the unknown of whether it makes sense for you to even think about having children, whether it makes sense for you to think about aspiring to buy a home because what will this climate be?”

The theme of “climate anxiety” has also surfaced within Harris’s own family.

In August, her stepdaughter, Ella Emhoff, shared on TikTok that she too was struggling with environmental dread.

“I think everything with the environment is really f**king getting to me. … I experienced a lot of climate anxiety, like a lot of us do,” Emhoff said, emphasizing that her concerns were serious and “not funny.”

Ella Emhoff gives her low IQ takes on the current politics of the world and says she “experiences a lot of climate anxiety.”

I thought Hope Walz was brainless but Ella might be even dumber.

She’s unbearably vapid.

(smellaemhoff on TT) pic.twitter.com/QE8rB9L0lX

— Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) August 14, 2025

Studies and surveys have shown an increase in climate-related concern among younger demographics.

A 2023 Pew Research Center report found that 78 percent of Democrats viewed climate change as a “major threat to the country,” while 55 percent said that declining birth rates would have a “positive impact” on the environment.

Pew’s 2025 data showed that adults in their 20s and 30s were planning to have fewer children than previous generations, coinciding with the U.S. birth rate remaining below replacement level.

However, other research has revealed that while Americans are having fewer children, their ideal family size remains larger.

A Gallup report released in September found that the U.S. birth rate had fallen to a record low of 1.6 births per woman, but Americans still viewed an average of 2.7 children as ideal.

Gallup noted that preferences for larger families—three or more children—reached 45 percent in 2023, the highest level recorded since 1971.

“Gallup has been measuring Americans’ opinions of the ideal family size periodically for almost 90 years. After falling steeply in the second half of the 20th century in parallel with the U.S. birth rate, Americans’ preferred family size has now stabilized at a level that well exceeds the actual rate,” the firm stated in its 2025 analysis.

The report attributed the ongoing gap to “economic and cultural headwinds” such as the high cost of housing, childcare, healthcare, and education, along with delayed marriage and declining religiosity.

Gallup’s survey also showed that attitudes about family size vary across demographic and political lines. Men, Republicans, people of color, and adults who regularly attend religious services were found to be more likely to prefer larger families.

“Meanwhile, adults who rarely or never attend religious services, Democrats, white people, adults under age 30, and women under age 50 are significantly more likely than their counterparts to say one or two children is ideal,” the report read.

Harris’s remarks about “climate anxiety” reflect a recurring theme in her public appearances, linking environmental concerns to personal and societal decisions.

Her comments at the Fortune gala drew renewed attention as part of an ongoing national discussion about generational outlooks on family, economics, and the future of the environment.