Selected challenges of the elderly in the context of climate change

The purpose of the article is to diagnose challenges related to the needs of seniors having to do with climate change. Selected challenges are addressed in detail, i.e., seniors' greater exposure to the effects of climate change, and seniors' limited digital competence and financial resources, which are important barriers to minimising the negative effects of climate change. The practical goal is to develop recommendations for improving the situation of seniors in the face of climate change. The issue of ageing in the context of climate change can be considered original. There is a clear gap in the literature in this area, although it is indicated that this is one of the most important challenges of this century globally. Research is conducted in theoretical and empirical dimensions. The theoretical parts present an analysis of literature on the subject, legal acts and source materials of EU institutions. In the empirical part, the first step was to define the data necessary for the empirical analysis and to define the geographic area to which the data were to apply (the EU). The analysis was carried out using descriptive statistical methods. This part also includes a comparative analysis of issues related to the ageing of the population in individual EU member states, causes of death in older people broken down by the most common diseases (for the EU), digital competence of EU residents broken down by age group, and income of older people in the EU. The empirical part is based on an analysis of data from the Eurostat database. Some limitation in rearranging the data was their limited availability, i.e. not all the most up-to-date data applied to all countries. The article presents only those data for which values were obtained from all countries and then aggregated to EU values. Three hypotheses were put forward, which are addressed in the final part of the article. Our analysis shows that the elderly are already more severely affected by climate change, as they are overwhelmingly at risk of cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, as well as pandemic illnesses and mental disorders. Added to this is a health and social care system that is inadequately prepared for these challenges Cognitive barriers quite prevalent in the elderly group, along with language and technological barriers, which can effectively limit the ability to minimise the negative effects of climate change. Our analysis shows that seniors are a marginal group of Internet users worldwide, which, among other things, may make it more difficult to access hazard warnings and information on how to respond and more vulnerable to mortality in the wake of extreme weather events. We assume that a lack of digital competence significantly impairs seniors' quality of life. Our analysis shows that the financial resources of the elderly are already limited, and many seniors are not coping financially. Certainly, this situation will make it much more difficult or even impossible to adapt, at least in terms of the housing conditions of seniors, to the needs of the changing climate. The end result of the article is a list of recommendations for public authorities to improve the situation of the elderly in the face of climate change, broken down into the following categories: greater vulnerability of the elderly to the effects of climate change; relatively low digital competence of the elderly in the face of climate change; limited financial resources of the elderly in the face of climate change.