Making Survival Accessible

Many have researched climate change and its impacts on the human experience as the state of the earth worsen. However, like many fields of study, the concept of intersectionality is often missing, meaning certain point of views are not included, such as the ones of people with disabilities. The text below will look at the reasons why disabled people are likely to be more vulnerable to the consequences of climate change, reasons such as the ableist vision of disability as fatal, and the overall deepening of already existing inequalities created by climate change. The text will also examine the way the Human rights of disabled people are likely to be affected as the situation worsen, specifically their right to food, shelter, safety, and movement.

Climate change corresponds to a ‘‘change’’ in the earth’s climate which is linked ‘‘directly or indirectly to human activity’’, changes that are significant in comparison to past periods (Benevolenza, DeRingne, 2019, p.268). Some of the direct recorded effects of climate change in terms of the state of the planet include the warming atmosphere and oceans (also commonly called global warming), shrinking glaciers and ‘‘rising atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide’’ (Gaskin et al., 2017, p.801-802). Other consequences which impact more concretely human life include rising sea levels, frequent extreme weather and climate events such as natural disasters (Gaskin et al., 2017), and resource shortages in terms of water and food supplies (Saxton and Ghenis, 2018). All of those changes impact directly and indirectly human health and mobility, as well as place habitability (Bell, Tabe and Bell, 2020), leading to forced migration, injuries and death. In 2020, it was estimated that about 15% of the world population lives with a disability (Bell, Tabe and Bell, 2020), and this number is said to, most likely, increase with climate change continuing to progress (Saxton and Ghenis, 2018). The disabled community is a diverse group, but the main categories include ‘‘physical mobility impairment, vision/hearing impairment, cognitive disability, people with mental illness labels and chronic illness’’ (Saxton and Ghenis, 2018, p.3). Furthermore, the number of disabled people is likely to increase more within already vulnerable groups such as the elderly, low-income people, and migrants due to their lack of access to healthcare and resources like quality nutrition and assistance (Saxton and Ghenis, 2018).

Disability and climate change are linked because evidence shows that climate change will ‘‘disproportionately affect individuals, groups and peoples in vulnerable situations including (…) persons with disabilities’’, disabled people with other marginalizing identities such as lower-class citizens, elderly people, and other vulnerable able-bodied people (Saxton and Ghenis, 2018, p.4). Furthermore, disabled people have a lower rate of survival when it comes to natural disasters as they are often neglected or left to die (Saxton and Ghenis, 2018). Medically, we know certain conditions such as multiple sclerosis can make thermoregulation challenging which could be an issue when it comes to changing temperatures coming from climate change (Gaskin et al., 2017), however this text will look at the social and institutional factors of vulnerability. The vision of disability as a ‘‘naturally’’ fatal identity could be to blame for the neglect experienced by disabled people, as their limitations and impairments are often blamed for the lower rates of survival of this community, instead of the exclusionary structures and environments surrounding them (Bell, Tabe and Bell, 2020). Death, despair, and disaster are concepts often associated with disability, especially in the context of natural disasters such as hurricane Katrina, as points out Erevelles (2011), concepts further adding to this notion of fatality. In other words, when disabled people are seen as eternal victims because of their natural bodies, we are less likely to change the systems around us, and to reach transformative justice and equity. Furthermore, if the focus and blame is put on the medical side of disability, we are less likely to pay attention to the way the Human rights of disabled people are affected as a result of climate change, a lot of them simply being taken away from them.

As mentioned earlier, the people most vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change are the people already vulnerable to systemic abuse due to their class, gender, age, and abilities (Saxton and Ghenis, 2018). The reason for this is that climate change is said to exacerbates and deepen inequalities already present in our society, meaning the people already at the margins and struggling to have their needs met are likely to be completely forgotten or sacrificed in the case of a crisis, which was pointed out earlier in the case of disabled people. The concept of the homo sacer refers to a person who lives a bare, unprotected life due to the refusal of the government to extend its protection, concept often used to talk about the situation of undocumented migrants because their lack of citizenship and their existence outside of the law, makes them unqualified for protection (Whitley, 2017, p.3). As for the concept of semi-citizenship brought up by Kingston (2019), it refers to the situation where a citizen of a state is being denied some of their rights for a variety of reasons. Semi-citizenship is an effective way to present the way a lot of disabled people exist in relation to the state they belong to, and when it comes to climate change, this is even more important because they are often not included in the solutions, meaning there is already this plan of leaving them behind, thus refusing them the right to security, food and even the right to life which are rights which everybody should have access to. In other words, semi-citizenship could correspond to the homo sacers who have legal citizenship within the nation they live in, it is a form of ‘‘inclusive exclusion’’ (Kingston, 2019, p.60). Though the International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has been signed, key points being the right to marry and work, and the prohibition of states to discriminate on the basis of disability (Clapham, 2007), ‘‘the needs and rights of disabled people are consistently and systematically excluded, their very existence ignored ontologically and practically’’ (Pisani and Grech, 2015, p.431-432), especially in the context of climate change, specifically when it comes to access to resources after natural disasters and the planification of evacuation plans.

Following the ravages of natural disasters, many states with the ability to help their populations will try to provide shelter, food, and water to what will then be considered the best of their abilities; in other words, they will try to maintain public health which is described as promoting ‘‘health and prolong life among the population as a whole’’, and in fact, it is said that disability itself is a public health concern, as for many it is a socio-economic inequality people are born into (Wong and Wong, 2020, p.490). However, previous and current crises have shown that rescuing systems are often unprepared for disability (Pisani and Grech, 2015), leaving disabled people unable to access the same support as able-bodied citizens. The Universal Declaration states that ‘‘everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security, in the event of (…) circumstances beyond his control’’ (Clapham, 2007, p.100-101), such as a natural disaster, however, in order for this right to be accorded to all, discrimination cannot occur. Following hurricane Katrina and Rita, many shelters did not provide a roof to disabled people due to their inaccessibility, and people’s lives were put in danger when some were separated from their medical supports (Davies and Hemmeter, 2010). The right to food, health, and housing were thus denied on the basis of disability due to the lack of attention given to the accessibility needs of people with disabilities, which goes against the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Clapham, 2007). Plus, discrimination sometimes occur during the distribution of resources when those are scarce, as mentioned by Gaskin (Gaskin et a., 2017). In the context of the right to education, the Declaration refers to accessibility in terms of physicality and architecture, meaning the buildings must be designed with the needs of disabled people in mind (Clapham, 2007), applying universal design principles to make those environments accessible to all (Gaskin et al., 2017), by incorporating things such as elevators and ramps, for example. Such a vision of accessibility must be applied to post-crises support systems, including shelters. In other words, disabled people are vulnerable to climate change mostly because they are excluded from the policies and resources put in place to help, and limit the damages caused by natural disasters and much more. The rights and protection accorded to the rest of the (non-disabled) population are often inaccessible to some, therefore not fulfilling the Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disability which is supposed to afford ‘‘people with disability the right to protection and safety in situations of risk, such as during natural disasters’’ (Gaskin et al., 2017, p.811). Additionally, in the situation where a disabled person is accorded the same rights, has access to the same resources, and survives, there are still obstacles such as an increase in rent prices, which is the example given by Davies and Hemmeter (2010) when talking about New Orleans after hurricane Rita and Katrina. The increased prices made housing less accessible to the disabled poor or completely inaccessible as some of those options were not adapted for disabled people. Physically and financially accessible housing are issues that the disabled community are experiencing right now, meaning they can only be exacerbated after the chaos of a natural disaster like a hurricane, which is why using a public health and Human rights lens to plan for the consequences of climate change could be helpful when it comes to alleviating health inequities (Wong and Wong, 2020).

Another way the Human rights of disabled people are being affected by the impacts of climate change is through the limitation of their movements. As natural disasters, rising waters, droughts, and food and water insecurity rises in numbers and intensity, mass forced migration is also a consequence of global warming (Saxton and Ghenis, 2018). Disabled people are part of those movements, the number of ‘‘climate migrants’’ being estimated to reach 100 million by the 2050 (Saxton and Ghenis, 2018). However, total movement restriction, abandonment or refusal of entry by the country of destination are all situations more likely to happen to disabled migrants (Saxton and Ghenis, 2018), even if it is illegal according to the International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to discriminate on the grounds of disability (Clapham, 2007), including during the process of immigration, meaning ‘‘that one’s disabilities cannot be used to deny nationality, freedom or movement, or inclusion within their community’’ (Kingston, 2019, p.11). As some people see themselves welcomed with open arms in their country of destination, the UN’s Convention of the Rights of People with Disabilities’ claim that there should be equal opportunities for all is not respected (Saxton and Ghenis, 2018), as disabilities are sometimes seen as a burden. The right of movement not being respected is especially problematic when we know ‘‘poverty, alongside deprivation, wars, conflict, and environmental disasters is what drives people to flee’’ (Pisani and Grech, 2015, p.421), characteristics associated with the global South which is where disabled people are the most common. In other words, the majority of disabled people are currently living in the area of the world which is the most likely to require displacement due to its vulnerability to the effects of climate change. Challenges faced by the disabled community when it comes to the access to refugee status include difficulty to communicate, to understand the asylum process, to present a coherent testimony, and more (Pisani and Grech, 2015). Disability theory is grounded in the notion that society and the notion of Human rights have failed to abolish the many barriers excluding disabled people and refusing them basic citizenship rights (Pisani and Grech, 2015), or the right to have a citizenship at all in the case where one’s country is unsafe to stay in and leads to migration. Furthermore, some have argued that both forced migration studies and disability studies could gain from more intersectionality as the first uses ableist approaches and the second has failed to question ‘‘issues of sovereignty, borders and bodies that lie beyond the protection of the Nation State’’ (Pisani and Grech, 2015, p.421), meaning both disciplines have failed to study this important intersection, further explaining why inclusion is lacking in practice. The right to movement accorded to disabled people is not being respected by many countries, and thus we must take climate change seriously to reduce the number of disabled people who will have to relocate in countries that would refuse them, though the number of climate migrants is said to grow as economies weaken and as security is threatened (Pisani and Grech, 2015).

To conclude, it is safe to say that as the world deals with climate change, disabled people are left behind, stripped away from their basic rights such as the right to food, shelter, safety, and movement, due to their current vulnerability to inequalities. I connected to the literature used to come to this statement because of the way it brought in the life experiences of people that are often systematically left behind, and such inclusion was long overdue. Including disabled people in the distribution of resources post crisis and including them in migration studies is crucial to make sure nobody is abandoned; however, we cannot expect this inclusion to happen during chaos if we are not trying to fix inequalities in our societies now. Disabled people must have all their rights be respected, always, if we want to be adequately prepared for the worsening impacts of climate change.

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