Advancing disability-inclusive climate research and action, climate justice, and climate-resilient development
Penelope J. S. Stein, Michael Ashley Stein, Nora Groce, Maria Kett, Emmanuel Akyeampong, Willliam P Alford, Jayajit Chakraborty, Sheelagh Daniels-Mayes, Siri Eriksen, Anne Fracht, Luis Enrique Mafla Gallegos, Shaun Grech, Pratima Gurung, Asha Hans, Paul Harpur, Sébastien Jodoin, J. E. Lord, Setareki S. Macanawai, Charlotte McClain‐Nhlapo, Benyam Dawit Mezmur, Rhonda J. Moore, Yolanda Muñoz, Vikram Patel, Phuong Pham, Gérard Quinn, Sarah A Sadlier, Carmel Shachar, Matthew S. Smith, Lise Van Susteren
Abstract
Globally, more than 1 billion people with disabilities are disproportionately and differentially at risk from the climate crisis. Yet there is a notable absence of climate policy, programming, and research at the intersection of disability and climate change. Advancing climate justice urgently requires accelerated disability-inclusive climate action. We present pivotal research recommendations and guidance to advance disability-inclusive climate research and responses identified by a global interdisciplinary group of experts in disability, climate change, sustainable development, public health, environmental justice, humanitarianism, gender, Indigeneity, mental health, law, and planetary health. Climate-resilient development is a framework for enabling universal sustainable development. Advancing inclusive climate-resilient development requires a disability human rights approach that deepens understanding of how societal choices and actions-characterised by meaningful participation, inclusion, knowledge diversity in decision making, and co-design by and with people with disabilities and their representative organisations-build collective climate resilience benefiting disability communities and society at large while advancing planetary health.