By Hari Krishna Nibanupudi
HYDERABAD, India, Jul 31 2025 – I’ve just returned from the east coast of India, where I saw for myself the harsh challenges that older people in artisanal fishing communities confront daily. I saw how the community elders — the keepers of marine traditions and the coastal environment — are being forsaken by climate policy and their governments.

As their children head inland to find work, the ageing fishers are left behind with only their fading memories and a rising sea. Their survival hangs by a thread. The social pension for a couple is just over $50 a month, not enough to afford more than a single bowl of daily rice boiled in seasoned water. Tea has become a luxury. I met widows who, despite living in a fishing community, had not eaten fish in months, and older men who lie on mud floors to cool their blistering bodies down and pray for a gust of wind. Their stories are a stark reminder of the human toll of climate change.

Disregarding age in climate action is not just unfair. It is short-sighted. Older people could be more vulnerable to climate impacts if they are mobility-impaired, sick or socially isolated. But they are also keepers of knowledge, leadership and resistance. Age interacts powerfully with climate vulnerability, and failing to understand this interaction undermines both equity and efficacy

When they perish, they pass away silently, recorded as victims of “old age,” not heatstroke – even in 47°C heat waves. Cyclones might make them legible as statistics, but during heatwaves, they disappear, unnoticed. These are not isolated tragedies. This is global climate injustice at its most naked.

The International Court of Justice ruled on 23 July 2025 that the refusal to take climate protection measures is not only immoral and unjust but also unlawful under international law and a violation of the right to life.

As we confront the escalating climate crisis, with temperatures in 2025 set to surpass the record of 2024, the immediate impact on older people cannot be overstated. While cities in Pakistan sizzled at 50°C, hospitals in Japan and the UK were overwhelmed with older patients. In Europe, a 2023 summer heatwave claimed the lives of 2,305 people in 12 cities, with a staggering 88% of the victims aged over 75.

The Lancet’s 2023 Countdown on Health and Climate Change delivered a stark warning: deaths in people over 65 from heat spiked 85% between the decades 1991 and 2000 and 2013 and 2022. Yet these are the people whose voices remain largely absent from climate negotiations, national adaptation plans, and global media coverage. Why? Due to persistent and pervasive structural ageism.

Older people are often viewed as passive liabilities rather than as valuable resources. Take, for example, the contrast in the way the global media responded to Greta Thunberg’s bold confrontation of world leaders. She was deservedly celebrated across global platforms as the voice of youth rebelling against climate injustice.

Yet when a group of older Swiss women won a historic case at the European Court of Human Rights, forcing the Swiss government to align its climate action with international commitments, the global media response was muted, revealing the age bias at the heart of public discourse.

At HelpAge International, we are working to change this narrative. In this UN Decade of Healthy Ageing (2021–2030), we are calling for older people to be recognised as a distinct constituency in global climate policy, just as youth, women, and Indigenous peoples are.

We are urging climate finance institutions—including the Green Climate Fund, the Adaptation Fund, the Climate Investment Fund, and the Loss and Damage Fund—to establish dedicated windows to support older people-led adaptation and resilience initiatives.

As our planet ages and heats, it’s crucial to address the blind spot in climate action: the age bias towards older people. By 2030, there will be 1.4 billion people aged 60 and above, and this number is expected to rise to 2.1 billion by 2050, constituting one-fifth of the global population.

It’s high time that this demographic shift is considered in climate legislation, financial mechanisms, and data frameworks, which often fail to account for the unique vulnerabilities and contributions of older people.

Meanwhile, older people are not waiting to be included. They are actively leading community-based climate solutions worldwide.

For instance, older women in India’s Thar Desert are revitalising rain-fed agriculture and constructing earthen dams for future food and water security. In Southeast Asia, older people’s associations are producing bamboo biochar for carbon storage.

In Ethiopia and Thailand, established cooperatives of older people are developing climate-resilient value chains in honey, aloe vera, and agroforestry. These are not just experimental projects — they are proven, scalable models of resilience. However, they require institutional recognition and support to reach their full potential.

We advocate for the implementation of an age-inclusive heat resilience strategy, drawing on practical approaches from Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

These approaches include retrofitting homes with traditional cooling methods, such as mud floors, shaded courtyards, and reflective surfaces; designing infrastructure that is age-friendly, including covered walkways, shaded transport stops, and accessible water points; and creating green public spaces that promote intergenerational ties and serve as natural cooling areas.

These strategies are not just beneficial for older people, but for entire communities, making them a wise investment in our collective future.

Disregarding age in climate action is not just unfair. It is short-sighted. Older people could be more vulnerable to climate impacts if they are mobility-impaired, sick or socially isolated.

But they are also keepers of knowledge, leadership and resistance. Age interacts powerfully with climate vulnerability, and failing to understand this interaction undermines both equity and efficacy. It’s time to ensure that climate action is fair and just for all, regardless of age. There is no true climate justice without inclusion, and inclusion rings hollow when older people are excluded.

Hari Krishna Nibanupudi is a global climate change and ageing adviser with HelpAge International.

By Esther Ngumbi
URBANA, Illinois, US, Jul 30 2025 – Recent weeks have seen an increase in extreme weather events. From heat waves occurring across the Midwest states to flash flooding in Texas, Maryland, and New York.

Although these weather events have had significant and measurable impacts on humans, rarely making headlines are the detrimental impacts these events have on agriculture, and that lack of coverage needs to change.

Most concerning is the noticeable gap in dialogue and focused attention by researchers, policy makers and other key stakeholders in agricultural crop production and food systems, a gap that urgently needs to change as well.

It’s time for researchers, policy makers, governments, media, and stakeholders across agriculture and food systems to engage more urgently in how these events affect not just humans, but also how they detrimentally impact agricultural crops and the microbial communities that support soils and agricultural crops health

Heat and flooding impact the crops such as corn, wheat, rice, and vegetable crops including tomato that we depend on to meet food and nutritional security needs.

These impacts can range from changes in growth patterns, acres of crops decimated to tons of vegetables unsellable due to potential contamination by flooding waters. All these losses also have a dollar value associated with them.

For example, the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture estimated crop-related flooding damage in Arkansas in 2025, to be $78.9 million. 

Indeed, recent research coming from research institutions and universities across United States universities has demonstrated that these events detrimentally affect agricultural crop growth and production, resulting in reduced yields and agricultural crop revenue, while driving up prices and crop insurance payments.

Heatwaves and flooding also impact plant physiology and metabolism, disrupting the life-sustaining processes of plants, including photosynthesis, respiration, the antioxidant defense system, and reactive oxygen species scavenging. These changes hinder plant growth and development, leading to reduced crop productivity and yield losses.

Ultimately, farmers lose their crops and the revenue they get from farming, and these losses are passed on to consumers through increased prices. For example, according to The American Farm Bureau Federations, in 2024, farmers lost $20.3 billion to weather disasters including flooding and heat waves.

Extreme weather also affects the multitude of belowground microbes that underpin the health of soil, its functions, health, and quality, as well as the soil microbiomes that govern soil and plant health and key biogeochemical processes, including nutrient and water cycling. Both beneficial and pathogenic microbes are impacted by flooding.  

Flooding, for example, has been reported to impact soil microbial communities negatively, depleting beneficial soil microbes, and affecting other beneficial soil-dwelling organisms, such as earthworms.

And because belowground processes are tightly linked and interconnected with aboveground processes, changes in the health and productivity of crops can be impacted by changes in belowground dwelling organisms.

Importantly, researchers are rising to the challenge of finding solutions to mitigate the trail of damage that these extreme events have on agricultural crops and production systems both during and after these events have happened.

Take the case of flooding; emerging research reveals that applying nitrogen-based fertilizers immediately after a flooding event can help rescue plants from the detrimental impacts of flooding.

Disturbingly, however, although nitrogen fertilizer can help mitigate flooding impacts, its use is not sustainable due to its negative impacts on ecosystems, including polluting groundwater and streams, while contributing to the greenhouse effect. Therefore, researchers must push the boundaries beyond nitrogen.

Fortunately, the agricultural market is filled with sustainable bioproducts, including biostimulants and microbial inoculants. These products, that contain live microorganisms such as mycorrhizal fungi, nitrogen-fixing bacteria or other groups of beneficial microbes, have potential in mitigating the detrimental impacts that extreme weather events have on crops, and their investigation should be considered.

Excitingly, this is beginning to happen. For example, a recent study revealed that foliar spraying tomato plants with microbes improved their tolerance against acute heat wave stress. In addition, review papers are being published that detail what we currently know, while outlining future research questions to explore further.

Moving into the future, this line of research needs to be funded so that the excitement in using these products as well as the challenges that come along with using biostimulants including a lack of regulation and unified terminology and the growing concerns that introduced microorganisms could mutate as they adapt to environments can be addressed. The use of biostumulants is expected to keep growing, with global market estimated to reach USD 7.84 billion by 2030.

Notably, there is a need to think of long-term solutions. Thankfully, regenerative agriculture approaches, including the use of cover crops, can be utilized. Further, recent research is reaffirming this and has revealed that cover crops can mitigate the effects of flooding, thus enhancing resilience to extreme weather events.

Cover crops are plants that are primarily grown to provide several benefits including improving water infiltration, soil health and structure, and controlling erosion. These crops can be important long-term tools to mitigate extreme weather events including mitigating flooding risks by absorbing excess soil water while improving soil physical properties. 

Although the use of cover crops continues to gain traction in the United States, rising by 17% between 2017 and 2022, according to recent satellite-based research from that analyzed 100, 000 fields, their adoption and use can pose some challenges and potential drawbacks that continue to warrant more research and consideration.

Future projections indicate that many extreme weather events including flooding will continue to increase in both intensity and frequency.

It’s time for researchers, policy makers, governments, media, and stakeholders across agriculture and food systems to engage more urgently in how these events affect not just humans, but also how they detrimentally impact agricultural crops and the microbial communities that support soils and agricultural crops health.

By acknowledging and documenting these impacts through research, we can begin to develop sustainable, science driven solutions, both short and long term.  The time is now.

Esther Ngumbi, PhD is Assistant Professor, Department of Entomology, African American Studies Department, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

By Tanka Dhakal
THE HAGUE, Jul 30 2025 – Legal minds in international law are trying to interpret the scope and impact of the landmark advisory opinion on climate change by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), where it said that states have a duty to prevent significant harm to the environment.

The court ruling says that the states have a responsibility to cooperate internationally to prevent the impact of climate change. It didn’t directly link climate change and the health crisis but recognized the health aspect through the “right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.” Organizations advocating for the health-related actions in the climate change discussion are saying the court opinion affirmed “climate crisis as health crisis.”

Yamide Dagnet, Senior Vice President, International The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), noted the advisory opinion made three things clear.

• All countries have an obligation to address climate change under international and customary laws, beyond their commitments under the Paris Agreement.
•  It provides legal leverage to seek reparations from major emitters, including from the fossil fuel industry.
• Small islands will keep their statehood if their land disappears due to sea level rise—as illustrated by the Rising Nation Initiative, Global Centre for Climate Mobility—thus boosting their efforts to preserve their sovereignty, rights, and cultural heritage with dignity.

Dr Jeni Miller, Executive Director at the Global Climate and Health Alliance said the court has delivered a historic affirmation that the climate crisis is a health crisis-and failure to act is a failure to protect life

“This ruling confirms that governments and corporations have a legal duty to prevent further harm, uphold the right to health, and safeguard future generations,” she said in a statement. “From deadly heat and toxic air to disease and displacement, the Court’s message is clear-human health is not collateral damage.”

The ICJ issued its ruling on July 23 in response to a United Nations (UN) General Assembly resolution led by Vanuatu, the small island nation in the Pacific, which knocked on the ICJ’s door asking for an advisory opinion on the obligation of the states to address climate change and its legal consequences.

Following a long hearing last December, the ICJ delivered its first opinion on climate change. “The case was unlike any that have previously come before the court,” President of the International Court of Justice Judge Yuji Iwasawa said while reading the court’s unanimous advisory opinion. “This case was not simply a legal problem but concerned an existential problem of planetary proportions that imperils all forms of life and the very health of our planet.”

Pivotal moment for climate and health justice

While addressing planetary health, the court laid out the case for the impact of human-induced climate change and its impact on growing health concerns. In its ruling the court took note of participants discussing the existence of a right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.

During the hearing of the case in December Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus testified to the court and said climate change is fundamentally a health crisis. “The climate crisis is among the most significant health challenges facing humanity today,” he said during his testimony to the court.

Experts believe that health workers and advocates now have powerful legal backing to demand bold, science-based climate action rooted in justice. They are still reviewing the court’s opinion to make a more nuanced analysis and said it marks a pivotal moment for climate and health justice. Shweta Narayan, Campaign lead at the Global Climate and Health Alliance, said the ruling affirms the urgency of comprehensive, rights-based action that addresses both immediate health harms and the root causes of the crisis.

“This represents a major step forward in reframing the climate crisis as fundamentally a health crisis-and in mobilizing the legal, scientific, and political tools needed to respond,” she adds.

“This ruling strengthens the moral mandate to place health at the center of climate negotiations, including in adaptation, loss and damage, and climate finance frameworks.”

The court used the human rights approach to address the health aspect of climate change in its ruling. In a rapid legal analysis, Vanuatu, who led the campaign for the opinion, also welcomed the ruling.

“The opinion integrates international human rights law, identifying the rights to life, health, an adequate standard of living, and the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment as directly threatened by climate change,” the Vanuatu Climate Justice Program said in a statement. “It affirms that environmental protection is a precondition for their enjoyment.”

Dagnet added that it demonstrated the power of activism.

“The students of Vanuatu dared to dream big and challenge the status quo, and it paid off with what could end up being one of the most important milestones in the global climate fight. I am thrilled at the landmark International Court of Justice (ICJ) decision to validate some of the most ambitious climate priorities championed by vulnerable states over the last 50 years.”

IPS UN Bureau Report

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