Towards Disability-Inclusive Climate Resilience

Governments around the world are failing to adopt disability-inclusive climate adaptation and mitigation strategies, even though climate change disproportionately affects persons with disabilities. For example, in climate emergencies persons with disabilities are too often excluded from disaster, health and humanitarian services. Emergency warning systems may be inaccessible, making it difficult for persons with disabilities to plan for extreme weather events. Also, slow-onset climate changes, such as sea-level rise and hotter weather with subsequent water and food scarcity, exacerbate existing barriers for persons with disabilities, while also endangering the general population. Despite these challenges, persons with disabilities are frequently excluded from climate adaptation planning processes.

At the same time, most climate researchers have paid scant attention to disability-related equity gaps in governments' climate responses. In 2022, for instance, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that only 1% of 1682 papers on climate adaptation responses considered persons with disabilities.¹ Thus, in their comment for Nature, HPOD Senior Associate Penelope J. S. Stein and Executive Director Michael Ashley Stein, along with HPOD Associate Nora Groce and Maria Kett, both of the University of College London, have urged researchers to undertake more disability-inclusive climate research that addresses such gaps. As Professor Stein recently explained to Harvard Law Today:

Our goal in writing this Comment is to catalyze research and innovation of climate solutions at the intersection of disability and climate change. Significant research gaps exist as to how persons with disabilities are impacted by climate change and the interventions which will be most effective in promoting their human rights. People with disabilities are under-researched in the fields of science, medicine, law, and policy. The social transformation required for disability climate justice requires research, innovation, and collaboration across all these fields with organizations of persons with disabilities.

They signal several ways that climate researchers can ensure their research contributes to closing disability equity gap in climate adaptation. First, researchers can and should use disability data in their studies, which would aid with mapping, compiling disability-aggregated morbidity and mortality statistics, and assessing the efficacy of either disability-specific or general climate resilience measures on persons with disabilities. Also, researchers can and should explore how increasing temperatures can have unique or pronounced effects on persons with certain ambulatory, neurocognitive, and psychosocial disabilities, such as through clinical trials on the effects of medications on thermoregulation during hot weather. Moreover, researchers can and should explore how persons with disabilities in high climate risk settings may experience increased barriers to accessing clean water and medications or the disproportionate effects of significant weather events on persons with disabilities.²

Importantly, the authors point to other ways climate researchers can support disability-inclusive climate action. For instance, they can and should collaborate with organizations of persons with disabilities (OPDs) to develop person-centered culturally and environmentally appropriate initiatives.³ The can also contribute to climate literacy among persons with disabilities by ensuring that climate information is available in accessible formats, such as plain language. Additionally, they may support strategic litigation to hold duty-bearers accountable for failures to fulfill obligations under international human rights law, as well as other applicable local, national, and international standards. Ultimately, climate researchers must be aware of their critical role in pushing back against disability-related inequities in the global climate agenda as well as their duty to contribute to ongoing efforts to promote disability-inclusive climate action.

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