Towards an Ethical Approach to Climate Change and its Health Risks for older adults

Abstract Climate change is a public health threat that disproportionately impacts certain groups more than others. Getting old is something that most of us will experience during our lifetime, and older adults are among those at elevated risk for adverse impacts due to climate change. As a result, it behooves us as a society to consider how we will approach mitigating climate change impacts on older adults. We must carefully consider what ethical principles underpin the policies and laws that affect older adults, particularly as the world is facing increasing challenges with the distribution of resources. This paper argues for an ethical approach to climate change and older adults that is based on the care-ethic framework developed by Gilligan, Tronto and Fisher using case studies from New Zealand and Italy to illustrate how this framework could be applied.