The Government Actuary’s Department has used a recent international webinar to make a wider point about climate policy: if decision-makers want to protect health in an ageing society, they need to stop treating risks one by one. Speaking at “Unpicking the web: climate change and health”, GAD’s Head of Climate and Disaster Risk, Georgina Bedenham, set out how systems thinking can help explain the relationship between climate change, health and later life. That matters because climate impacts do not stay neatly inside one sector. For older people in particular, the pressure can move quickly from weather shocks to disrupted care, tighter public finances and weaker community support, turning a climate event into a broader health challenge.

According to the Government Actuary’s Department, climate-related hazards can affect health both directly and indirectly. Bedenham pointed to immediate risks such as flooding and storms causing injuries and affecting mental health, while extreme heat can raise the risk of heat-related illness and dehydration. These are the impacts people can often see first. Yet the bigger message from the session was that visible damage is only part of the story, especially as hotter summers, heavier rainfall and other climate pressures place more strain on the systems older people depend on every day.

The less visible effects may prove just as important. GAD’s presentation highlighted how climate change can interrupt healthcare delivery through infrastructure strain, while wider economic damage can reduce growth and put pressure on healthcare budgets. This is where the discussion moved beyond single hazards. A flooded road, an overstretched clinic or a tighter local budget can each affect health outcomes, but together they can create a chain reaction across health, economic and social systems. For Eco Current readers, that is the practical value of systems thinking: it makes clear where risks connect, and where better planning could reduce harm before it spreads.

Bedenham also shared details of GAD’s ongoing work on climate change and health. Drawing on evidence and engagement with a diverse group of stakeholders, the department has co-developed a systems map to identify links between climate-related hazards and mortality in the UK. The webinar offered an early look at findings from that project, along with a sense of where the work is heading next. In policy terms, this kind of mapping can help move the conversation from broad concern to clearer choices about resilience, preparedness and which pressure points deserve attention first.

The event was co-hosted by ILC UK, the ILC Global Alliance Climate Change Committee and GAD, and the wider panel added an international lens that grounded the discussion in lived experience. Professor Liat Ayalon of the School of Social Work in Israel presented a case study from Togo, showing how climate change has affected food security, social cohesion and migration among older people. That contribution widened the frame in an important way. Climate-health risk is not only about hospitals and heat alerts; it is also about whether people can stay connected, fed and supported as conditions shift around them.

Professor Torsten Kleinow of the Research Centre for Longevity Risk at the University of Amsterdam then explored how heatwaves affect short-term mortality spikes across Europe. Together with perspectives from South Africa, Bangladesh and elsewhere in Europe, the panel underlined that climate-health challenges are global, but never identical from one place to another. The lesson was clear without becoming fatalistic. The same hazard can land very differently depending on age profile, housing, care capacity and social conditions, which means responses have to be informed by local context as well as international evidence.

GAD says its work will continue to deepen understanding of how climate change and health interact, with the aim of supporting actuarial analysis and more informed decision-making in a period of growing uncertainty. That may sound technical, but the public value is straightforward: better analysis should mean better choices on prevention, adaptation and how public systems prepare for future strain. For a publication focused on practical climate action, the takeaway is encouraging. This was not a discussion about climate and ageing as separate agendas, but about building policy that recognises how tightly they are connected. A recording of the session is available on the ILC UK webinar page.