The United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference COP27 closed last week with a breakthrough agreement to provide "loss and damage" funding for vulnerable countries hit hard by climate disasters.
However, Disabled people are not yet formally recognized by the UN as a vulnerable population, despite extensive evidence of the outsize impact of climate change on us.
Disabled people face distinctive challenges as the climate warms due to barriers to accessing warning systems and transportation, as well as generally poor health, health care access, and housing, people with disabilities have a mortality rate up to four times higher than that of non-disabled people in natural disasters.
In the hope of changing attitudes and to further include the community in climate discussions, DR UK took a “statement of intent” to COP last week, and it was delivered into the hands of delegates and representatives who attended.
The DR UK statement, which was co-signed by many global Disabled activists, explained that Disabled people are currently excluded from discussions and solutions around climate change, meaning the impact of any legislation on those who are disabled is overlooked. This is referred to as “Eco-ableism”.
Now the statement has been received, DR UK and its coalition of activists and campaigners are going to continue to grow their disability climate change coalition and begin to share their statement with other groups both political and representative.
DR UK climate group lead Dan White said: “This was never going to be a one-off campaign. Alongside our work on disability poverty in this appalling cost-of-living crisis, climate change, if left unchallenged, will be equally as negative to the community in terms of challenges, if not worse.
“Now our statement has been received and read by COP leaders and other invited global Disability groups, we can begin to get our voices, experiences and solutions to the table. If climate change is humanities issue, then all of humanity deserves to get involved. Watch this space.”
