The Global Response to Climate Change must be Disability Inclusive

On June 30th, CBM Ireland will launch a report on how climate change has impacted persons with disabilities.  Through a small scale survey and interviews with persons with disabilities and organisations representing persons with disabilities, the short paper explores and analyses how climate change impacts on the lives of persons with disabilities from four different perspectives – personal, programme, policy and political.

Some of the reports key findings highlighted the challenges persons with disabilities face on a personal level with the impact of climate change directly affecting access to nutrition, loss of livelihood opportunities and lack of access to critical life-saving information before, during and after climate-related weather events. Other challenges highlighted included, lack of inclusion of persons with disabilities in mainstream climate mitigation and adaption programmes, an under-investment in capacity building on how to integrate a disability inclusive climate response and invisibility of the voices and perspectives of persons with disabilities in global and national climate policy forums.

The report also highlighted the different opportunities where progress can be built. Examples of how organisations representing persons with disabilities in the Pacific and Latin America are engaging in climate change and disability inclusion in their programming was a particular highlight. Finally, the report makes some recommendations that can be used for advocacy purposes to ensure that persons with disabilities and their representative organisations are not left behind in the global, national and local movements advancing climate justice

If you would like to learn more and listen to speakers sharing their experiences and reflections on climate change and disability inclusion, please come and join our webinar on the 30th June. Register here!