Disability and climate change

Disabled person from Bulacan

Climate change has a disproportionate effect on individuals with disabilities, both directly and indirectly. Individuals with disabilities are more likely to experience greater effects of climate change on humans when compared to those without disabilities. Despite this, and despite the fact that disabled people make up more than 15% of the global population, they have had minimal input and involvement in the decision-making process surrounding responses to climate change.^[1] Typically, disabled people are the most likely to be negatively affected by any form of emergency, whether it be an immediate emergency like a flood or tornado or a gradual emergency like rising sea levels, due to a lack of access to emergency resources and the difficulties imposed by limited mobility. Disabled people are also more adversely affected by climate change because a disproportionate number of disabled people live in poverty, and people who live in poverty are inherently more at risk due to climate change.^[2]

Acknowledgements of increased risks[]

The increased risks of disabled people with respect to climate change have not been widely acknowledged. For example, the Millennium Development Goals did not reference the relationship between disability and climate change. However, several international agreements and documents do elaborate on the relationship, such as the 2010 Cancun Agreements, the 2013 Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage, and the preamble to the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change.^[1] Another step taken to ensure that information about climate risks by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) that publishes its new report highlighting the cases and further updates.^[3]

Meaningful participation, inclusion and leadership of people with disabilities and their representative organizations within disaster risk management and climate-related decision-making strategy within a local, national, regional and global levels, is a human right approach to address their rights and needs.^[4]

Global frameworks on Disability and Climate Change[]

There are a number of frameworks and policies that highlight the governments use of a human rights-based approach when developing and implementing climate policies and programmes to ensure equity.^[5]

Disabilities-health-climate-change

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities[]

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol (A/RES/61/106) was adopted on 13 December 2006 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, and was opened for signature on 30 March 2007. It had 82 signatories to the Convention, 44 signatories to the Optional Protocol, and 1 ratification of the Convention. It is the first comprehensive human rights treaty of the 21st century and is the first human rights convention to be open for signature by regional integration organizations.^[6] When in comes to the implementation of the UNCRPD, Eu developed a framework to ensure its application. The EU is required to have a basis to promote, protect and implement the UNCRPD in matters falling under the EU's competence. The framework became operational in 2013, based on a proposal by the Commission that was endorsed by the Council in 2012. It complements national monitoring mechanisms. Since late 2015, the European Commission is no longer active in the EU framework, but continues to coordinate the implementation of the UNCRPD.^[7] All States parties are obliged to submit regular reports to the Committee on how the rights are being implemented. States must report initially within two years of accepting the Convention and thereafter every four years. The Committee examines each report and shall make such suggestions and general recommendations on the report as it may consider appropriate and shall forward these to the State Party concerned.^[8]

UN Disability Inclusion Strategy (UNDIS)[]

The UN Partnership on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, a system wide partnership that UNDP hosts the technical secretariat with 5 other UN entities, can support UNCTs’ joint UN work on disability inclusion.^[9] The UNDIS acts as a benchmark towards achieving transformative change for people with disability. It consists of a policy and an accountability framework.^[10]

UN Secretary-General António Guterres launched the UNDIS to bring disability inclusion to the forefront of all areas of the UN’s work around the world.^[11] The United Nations Disability Inclusion Strategy provides the foundation for sustainable and transformative progress on disability inclusion through all pillars of the work of the United Nations: peace and security, human rights, and development. The Strategy enables the UN system to support the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and other international human rights instruments, as well as the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, the Agenda for Humanity and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.^[12] The Strategy enables the UN system to support the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and other international human rights instruments, as well as the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, the Agenda for Humanity and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction.^[13]

IASC Guidelines on Inclusive Humanitarian Action[]

Inclusion is achieved when people with disabilities meaningfully participate and when disability-related concerns are addressed in compliance with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.^[14] IASC Guidelines sets out the essential actions that humanitarian actors must take in order to effectively identify and respond to the needs and rights of persons with disabilities.^[15]

Climate change impact on people with disability[]

Person with disability crossing river Ganges

People with disabilities represent wide and diverse communities. For this, when talking about their needs, they differ based on individual situations. However, the risk is related to climate change-related health impacts could affect people with disabilities more than others because of their vulnerable status. People with limited incomes may face the fact that they cannot afford air conditioning in their home during heat waves, which increases their risk of heat stroke.^[16] Increased temperatures pose greater risks to disabled people, as many disabilities impact one's ability to regulate body temperatures, so the combined impact of economic inequality and disabilities increases the vulnerability of the disabled.^{[17] [18]}

The UN flagship report on disability and development reveals that disabled youth are having additional challenges that are related to their basic rights to higher education, as is the case in less developed countries where education for regular people is lacking.^[19]

People with disabilities make up an estimated 15 percent of the global population. However, issues like discrimination, marginalization and other social and economical factors affect the degree of intensity that climate change affects people with disabilities.^[3]

In 2018, the United Nations created a flagship report that has never been done before. The report was based on and talked about “disability and sustainable development goals”. The report mentions how people with disabilities are at a disadvantage when it comes to climate change and the issues that come with it. The report states that the world needs to create action in order to remove the disadvantages that people with disabilities have. The report recommends actions that should be taken in order to do so.

The report had actual outcomes. In 2019, Member states adopted two resolutions that were in the general assembly. “The first resolution titled “Promoting social integration through social inclusion” (A/C.3/74/L.17/Rev.1) and the second titled “Implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Optional Protocol thereto: accessibility” (A/C.3/74/L.32/Rev.1)” (UN.org).

Climate change related disadvantages[]

Working woman on a company for people with disabilities in Viet nam a project type

Poverty[]

Disabled people are disproportionately represented in the poorest communities, and a large percent live below the poverty line. As such, disabled people are more likely to be affected by the same challenges faced by impoverished communities. People with disabilities experience poverty at more than twice the rate of people not suffering from it.^[3] As the climate changes, crop failure and drought will become more common, leaving poorer communities without food security. Water shortages are more acutely felt by poor neighborhoods, a problem which will only become more clear as climate change worsens. As job opportunities are lost due to the impacts of environmental disasters, disabled people are likely to be the first to lose employment or agricultural land.^[2]

Health[]

Lt. Governor Rutherford Tours the League for People with Disabilities' Vaccination Site

Climate change results with more health care inequalities faced by persons with disabilities.^[20] Many persons with disabilities depend on assistive devices that improves their physical functions and mobility. Once they are threatened by a disaster, assistive devices are out of reach because they are either lost or damaged. This would leave them without adaptive support to survive.^[21]

Even without the impacts of climate change, disabled people have less equal access to health care than those without disabilities because of social stigmas, exclusion, poverty, discriminatory policies, and a lack of health care programs for specific disabilities. When stressors related to climate change reduce the effectiveness of health care systems, these inequalities in access to health care between disabled and non-disabled people widen. Disruptions to social services and other essential services can be especially detrimental, as disabled people often rely on regular and reliable access to these services.^[2]

During climate change induced disasters, another challenge disabled people may face is the loss of adaptive equipment that help them have increased mobility or ability to interface via sight or sound. These could include wheelchairs, hearing aids, and the like. During a disaster, these devices are likely to be lost or destroyed. Additionally, when relief is provided to areas affected by natural disasters, these types of items are rarely provided, leaving disabled people to go without them for extended periods of time.^[2] Increased temperatures pose greater risks to disabled people, as many disabilities impact one's ability to regulate body temperatures.^{[22] [23]} Climate change also poses specific risks to those with respiratory disabilities because the warming climate can increase triggers such as ground level ozone and pollen. ^[24]

Persons with Disabilities Day

Mobility[]

While disabled people are frequently less physically mobile, they also experience other mobility-related disadvantages. Disabled people often have more difficulty travelling internationally, despite technically having the . This typically occurs because countries will deny disabled migrants entry because of the perceived burden they are believed to place on the country.^[1]

In the greater picture of climate change motivated migration, international migration plays a relatively minor role, with internal migration making up the bulk of movement. Unfortunately, there has been minimal research on the involvement in internal migration by disabled people, and the effects that this form of migration have on disabled people's adaptive capabilities are largely unknown.^[1]

Recognizing Vulnerability and Capacity for Adaption[]

An emergency within the context of climate change puts people with disabilities with an increased risk because of their vulnerability. A guidance note created by the World Health Organization regarding disability and emergency risk management describes a number of extra challenges faced by people with disabilities in an emergency period.^[25]

Critical factors shape the resilience and adaptive ability of individuals within their communities. Such factors are: access to and control over natural, human, social, physical, and financial resources .^[26] People with disabilities suffer from various types of vulnerabilities : poor education, lack of income, social exclusion and limited access to decision-making authorities.^[27]

References[]