It is said US President Barack Obama can take advantage of population ageing in taking the immediate and instantaneous actions related to climate change. The population aging is a phenomenon that occurs when the median age of a country or any region rises due to rising life expectancy and/or declining birth rates.

Population aging could be said as one of the most significant trends of the 21st century. According to experts, one in nine people in the world are aged 60 or above. They said as long as the fertility rate kept on declining the rate of life expectancy will continue to rise.

This means that older people will steadily increase as a proportion of the population. It has been seen that the phenomenon of population ageing is progressing fastest in developing countries.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), people of the age 60 and older have nearly doubled since 1980. It has been forecast that the data could reach to 2 billion by 2050 jumping from 11% to 22% of the total population during the first half of this century.

President Obama this week has a golden opportunity to add population aging to his environmental legacy when the White House Conference on Aging convenes in Washington.

If the President wants to gain political toehold with his regulatory and legislative agendas then he should recognize that older adults can be a key part of the process.

It has been found that in the US, the older adults’ tendency to vote is disproportionately higher than other age groups whereas the younger voters’ participation has been decreasing.