Kamal Ghorui
The world is ageing and heating—a defining challenge of this century. Today, 703 million people globally are 65 or older, projected to reach 1.5 billion by 2050.
By the late 2070s, the elderly will likely outnumber children under 18 worldwide.
Simultaneously, the climate crisis deepens: 2024 is confirmed as the warmest year on record, about 1.55°C above the 1850–1900 baseline. The last decade includes the ten warmest years on record.
The 2024 Lancet Countdown reported that in 2023, adults over 65 and infants worldwide were exposed to a record average of 13.8 heatwave days per person.
The same report warned that dangerous heat is rising faster than health systems and adaptation efforts can keep pace. This is not just a global story.
It is an Indian one, and it is becoming urgent. India’s population aged 60 and above is already about 153 million and is projected to rise to 347 million by 2050, nearly one in five Indians. The population aged 80+ is expected to grow even faster. That demographic shift is unfolding precisely as heat exposure worsens.
India is therefore not facing two separate futures, one demographic and one climatic. It faces a single, intertwined future: a hotter country with many more older people. Older people are at greater risk because ageing weakens the body’s ability to regulate temperature.
Sweating decreases, thirst fades, and the body cools itself less effectively. Chronic diseases increase the dangers. Disability, frailty, limited mobility, and isolation raise risks. Some medications make coping harder.
The WHO says heat stress causes most weather-related deaths and found heat mortality in people over 65 rose by about 85% between 2000–2004 and 2017–2021.
These are not remote risks. They are already an urgent threat in India’s everyday summer reality. Older people living alone in dense urban settlements, poorly ventilated apartments, informal housing or remote rural homes face disproportionate danger during prolonged heat.
The risk multiplies with poverty, weak housing quality, unreliable electricity, inadequate water access and overstretched public health systems. When a heatwave coincides with power cuts, water scarcity, high food prices or disruptions in public care, resilience collapses quickly, demanding immediate interventions.
Official data often misses the true impact. Many heat deaths are misclassified as cardiac, renal, or respiratory. This leads to undercounting, which weakens the response.
India’s broader heat trajectory makes this situation even more alarming and urgent. The country’s landmass was warmer by nearly 0.9°C during 2015–2024 compared with 1901–1930. In parts of north India, warming has occurred at around 0.2°C per decade. Across much of the country, the number of unusually warm days has risen by 5 to 10 days per decade.
In many regions, the hottest day of the year is now 1.5–2°C hotter than in the mid-20th century. This is not just about hotter afternoons. It is about longer, harsher and more frequent heatwaves, often with hot nights that prevent recovery, especially among older people and those with illnesses. These rapid changes leave little time for slow adaptation.
India must act decisively now to address this crisis. Delay will cost lives.
First, it must explicitly include an older-inclusive heat policy and ensure heat action plans are age-responsive.
This means early warnings that reach older people. India must adopt an inclusive heat policy that is age-responsive, with age-specific action plans. This includes timely and accessible early warnings, local outreach, support for at-risk elders, hydration points, emergency transport, and stronger protocols for vulnerable older adults.
Second, India needs age-friendly and heat-resilient cities. The Lancet Countdown and WHO emphasise the need for specific protection measures for older people and infrastructure. Community cooling centres, shaded bus stops, drinking water kiosks, walkable footpaths and benches in protected public spaces are infrastructure.
Yet many Indian cities move in the opposite direction: more concretisation, fewer trees, shrinking lakes and ponds, less ventilation and neighbourhoods built for traffic flow rather than thermal safety. This makes daily life harder for everyone, especially older people.
Third, India needs government-subsidised cool housing solutions. Millions of older people live in homes that trap heat: tin roofs, cement slabs, overcrowded rooms. Government subsidies should support cool, heat-resilient housing—like reflective roofs and passive ventilation—prioritising low-income and older residents.
The recent judicial orders have signalled that failure to protect people from foreseeable heat risks can implicate Article 21, the Right to Life, especially for vulnerable groups. The Rajasthan High Court ordered measures such as compensation, cooling shelters, water kiosks and work-hour protections, while the Supreme Court sought accountability for heat-related deaths and stronger implementation of heatwave guidelines.
In a good measure, the 16th Finance Commission has recommended classifying heatwaves and lightning as nationally notified disasters from 2026–27, which could improve access to central funds for preparedness, compensation and response.
Finally, communities save lives. Social isolation kills in the heat.
Responsible neighbourhoods check on older people, protect trees, and value ponds, shade, and cooling spaces. In India’s hotter, ageing future, social solidarity is a vital adaptation, not a sentiment.
It is critical that India stops treating ageing as just a future welfare issue and heat as a temporary inconvenience. Now is the moment to unite these challenges in all policies and actions.
Protecting older people from extreme heat is climate justice, and increasingly, a constitutional necessity.
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