Advancing disability-inclusive climate research and action, climate justice, and climate-resilient development

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 K Akyeampong, Willliam P Alford, Jayajit Chakraborty, Sheelagh Daniels-Mayes, Siri H Eriksen, Anne Fracht, Luis Gallegos, Shaun Grech, Pratima Gurung, Asha Hans, Paul Harpur, Sébastien Jodoin, Janet E Lord, Setareki Seru Macanawai, Charlotte V McClain-Nhlapo, Benyam Dawit Mezmur, Rhonda J Moore, Yolanda Muñoz, Vikram Patel, Phuong N Pham, Gerard Quinn, Sarah A Sadlier, Carmel Shachar, Matthew S Smith, Lise Van Susteren
April 2026
Journal Publications

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 organisation —build collective climate resilience benefiting disability communities and society at large while advancing planetary health.