Disability, Indigeneity, and Climate Justice

The climate crisis both uniquely and disproportionately impacts marginalized populations, including persons with disabilities, indigeneity, and intersectional identities. Indigenous Peoples with disabilities’ cultural connection to ancestral land and water is being profoundly threatened by climate change against a backdrop of disability discrimination, socioeconomic marginalization, and intergenerational trauma that affects their mental and physical well-being. Marginalized populations are confronted by the failure of governments to act and floundering international climate negotiations. Responding to this existential crisis, persons with disabilities and Indigenous Peoples are at the forefront of human rights-based strategic climate litigation. Indigenous Peoples with disabilities are powerful change agents in the fight for climate justice due to their deep cultural understanding of the connection of people to land, ecosystems, and biodiversity, and their lived experience of climatic harm. We consider how the principles of participation, equity, and accountability are vital to ensure the development and implementation of climate adaptation and mitigation plans, policies, and measures that increase the well-being of Indigenous Peoples with disabilities. Governments, policymakers, and institutions, led by and with Indigenous communities and their organizations of persons with disabilities, must operationalize disability climate justice and the right to a healthy environment to promote the well-being of Indigenous Peoples with disabilities worldwide as well as the well-being of all society.