At HelpAge, we are calling for the voices of older people to be heard in the climate change debate. Voices of people like Daisy, below, who is 55 with six children and two grandchildren.

She grows crops and looks after chickens to earn a living and is very aware of the changing climate. She says: “Climate change is affecting food production, we don’t produce enough food.”

The camera may be shaky, but the evidence stands firm. Older people have views on climate change and want to be heard.  Watch the clip and listen to Daisy.

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The climate change conference in Copenhagen is coming to the end of its first week. 56 newspapers around the world have shown unprecedented solidarity by featuring a shared editorial on the climate change negotiations COP15.

“Fourteen days to seal history’s judgment on this generation”, as it is called in the Guardian, is a strong, unwavering call for real changes to be made to halt global warming by measurably reducing carbon emissions.

At HelpAge, we are looking at how climate change is affecting older people in developing countries now.

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On 7 December, Copenhagen will host the United Nations debate on climate change. It is important that the declarations or protocols that emerge from this conference include the views of groups of people already suffering, or who will suffer, the effects of climate change most severely.

These groups are the vulnerable and marginalised poor, rural populations. Yet missing from meetings, discussions and debates leading to Copenhagen have been the voices of older people, a group that forms a significant portion of the vulnerable rural poor in Africa.

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The UN turned 64 on 24 October. To celebrate this, events were organised around the world, including a flag raising ceremony in Fiji and, in Tanzania, UN staff rebuild class room floors in schools.

However, the main focus of the day and indeed the article, The UN at 64: Climate change in the spotlight was, unsurprisingly, climate change. With the UN Climate change conference in Copenhagen fast approaching, it calls on the world community to join efforts to mitigate climate change.

Climate change is a universal issue

Most of us already know we need to act. Climate change is a huge threat to us and our planet - potentially the biggest we have ever faced. However, if climate change is a universal issue, why is everybody not treated equally in its light?

Having just hit the very impressive age of 64, the UN is an older being. It has a wealth of experience, understanding, knowledge and skills to offer the climate change debate. Exactly like older people all around the world. However, time and time again we find that older people and their potential contribution to climate change mitigation are forgotten.

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