Climate Change & Ageing

CEDAC operates at the intersection of three global crises — population ageing, climate change, and health inequality. Our climate-ageing work is anchored in a proposal now gaining international traction: that Climate Resilience be formally adopted as a ninth domain of the WHO-GNAFCC Age-Friendly Cities framework — complementing the existing eight domains with an explicit climate-ageing governance mandate.

Why Climate Change and Ageing?

Older adults bear a disproportionate burden of climate-related health risks. Physiological fragility, high non-communicable disease burden, reduced adaptive capacity, economic precarity, and social isolation compound their exposure to heat, floods, and climate disasters. Yet ageing as a determinant of climate vulnerability has remained systematically absent from India’s national climate adaptation frameworks and public health policy.

Kerala presents a microcosm of this national challenge: with over 17% of its population aged above 60 — among India’s highest — the state is simultaneously among the most climate-exposed, experiencing unprecedented floods (2018, 2019), extreme heat events, and expanding vectors of disease.

Our Flagship Programme: PRANAM

PRANAM — Protecting and Recognising Ageing Needs Against Climate — is CEDAC’s ward-level pilot delivering India’s first household-level climate-ageing vulnerability data, Elder Care Cards, and community early warning protocols. Currently deployed in Division 66, Kochi, with a model designed for zero-cost replication across all 75 wards of Kochi and WHO-GNAFCC member cities globally.

The Kochi Declaration

On 21 October 2025, India’s first National Roundtable on Climate Change and Healthy Ageing — convened by CEDAC at NUALS, Kochi — produced the Kochi Declaration on Climate Change and Healthy Ageing, adopted unanimously by 14 institutions including NIO, NUALS, NERCI, Geriatric Society of India, Pushpagiri Medical Sciences, and Malabar Cancer Centre.

International Recognition

CEDAC’s abstract has been accepted for presentation at the 3rd World Congress of Age-Friendly Cities and Communities, San Sebastián, Spain, June 2026 — at the personal invitation of the WHO-GNAFCC Coordinator. This positions Kochi, Kerala, and India at the global forefront of climate-ageing action.