HelpAge Calls for Age-Friendly Climate Change

Climate change and ageing are two of the biggest issues facing humanity this century, yet explicit links between the two are rarely made.  HelpAge International (HAI) has been working with older people in Africa, Asia and Latin America to understand the impacts that climate change is having on their communities.  As 99-year-old Ethiopian Abdullah explains, "The weather has changed completely. There used to be a lot more rain, but now it is dry. The weather started changing about 30 years ago."

HAI is calling on policy makers to implement a package of "age-friendly" measures to enable older people to be included in adaptation measures within the "post-Copenhagen" agenda by:

• investing in age-friendly health systems, social protection and support for older farmers
• researching traditional knowledge on climate change, studying indigenous, drought-resistant crops, and developing land and agriculture policies that take into account climate change
• including older people's issues in any policy dialogues taking place during and after the Copenhagen Summit
• making climate change messages more accessible to older people.