The European Disability Forum and the Youth Negotiators Academy call for meaningful participation of youth with disabilities in climate negotiations and climate action. This is why we launch together a paper under the name of ‘Youth with Disabilities at the Frontlines of Climate Action’.
Context
The world population counts around 1.2 billion young people, of which 22.8 with disabilities. The youth have been for the past decade the heart of the climate movement: being the ones who have the least contributed to the CO2 emissions, but the ones who will live through the consequences of the emissions of their predecessors, the youth have been taking the streets to ask for climate action. Despite that, young people stay largely underrepresented in conversations about climate where other stakeholders manage to occupy much more space.
The big absentees of this discourse are people whose identity find in the intersection between the youth and other under-represented identities (people from the Global South, immigrants, women, gender minorities, people from lower social classes, etc.). And, of course, youth with disabilities.
Youth with disabilities and climate
Given the intersectionality of their identity, youth with disability are subject to climate change’s disasters through a triple lens: they live it as persons with disabilities, as young people, and as young persons with disabilities.
As such, youth with disabilities face:
- exclusion from emergency preparedness planning;
- limited access to early warning and evacuation systems;
- loss of assistive and medical devices;
- reduced access to caregivers an medical assistance;
- heightened water and food insecurities;
- worsening poverty;
- greater psychological burden than previous generations.
Youth with disabilities must be heard
Youth with disabilities have the right and the duty to be taken to the discussion table when discussing climate change, mitigation, and prevention.
Climate actions that do not take into consideration disabilities since their first design end up presenting ableist and inaccessible characteristics for part of the population. The most efficient and fair way of ensuring the accessibility of these solutions is including different voices through all phases of discussions.
Youth with disabilities are the ones who know the best what works and what doesn’t work for them, having a first-hand experience since their birth and bringing a point of view that cannot be replaced.
Given the importance of including youth with disabilities in the political narrative, EDF and YNA has co-written a paper underlining the problems and their subsequent solutions to ensure an inclusive space where youth with disabilities can take part in.