As a disability specialist, activist and recovering academic, my interest in sustainability began with a simple but disturbing observation: disabled people had largely been excluded from conversations about the future of our planet. Representing more than 600 million people when the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were first agreed—and well over a billion today—we were almost invisible. Although disability was later incorporated into the Goals, I remain deeply concerned by the hierarchy and grouping the goals create. Disability is too often treated as an afterthought, disabled individuals a separate population, rather than recognised as equals in sustainable development.
I vividly remember a conversation with my PhD supervisor in which we realised that every single Sustainable Development Goal has disproportionate consequences for disabled people. Whether the issue is poverty, education, housing, employment, transport, health, gender equality or climate action, failure to achieve these goals falls hardest on those already living with structural disadvantage. Climate change does not only create inequality; it magnifies it. Governments cannot claim success on sustainability while leaving disabled people furthest behind.
When I began researching the relationship between ableism and climate change in 2018, I found remarkably little literature - I remember 1 lone paper. The few papers that referenced the issue obliquely concluded that disabled people and their representative organisations [DPOs] were largely absent from strategic discussions. This exclusion has practical consequences. Recycling centres are often inaccessible. Waste collection policies frequently assume everyone can carry heavy bins to the kerbside. Sustainable transport initiatives regularly overlook those with mobility impairments. The result is that disabled people are expected to make a greater effort, incur higher costs and overcome additional barriers simply to participate in environmental action.
These are not isolated inconveniences. They expose a profound failure of public policy.
The government must not separate environmental policy from social justice. A green transition that ignores accessibility is not a just transition. Every climate strategy should be assessed against its impact on the disabled population before implementation, not as an afterthought once inequality has already been created.
Poverty lies at the heart of this injustice. Disabled people face substantial barriers to employment, education and career progression, resulting in lower incomes and greater financial insecurity. At the same time, disability often brings unavoidable additional costs. Accessible housing is more expensive. Transport options are limited. Energy bills are higher. Specialist equipment must be purchased and maintained. The cost of participating in society is already significantly greater before environmental policies impose further demands.
Without recognising these realities, governments cannot accurately measure the true social cost of climate change or the fairness of their responses. Sustainability cannot simply be about reducing carbon emissions; it must also reduce inequality.
The structure of the Sustainable Development Goals unintentionally reinforces this problem by positioning disabled people as a subgroup requiring occasional consideration, rather than recognising disability as a cross-cutting issue that shapes every goal. Yet those facing ableism is one of the largest global minorities and, arguably, the only group that anyone can join at any stage of life. Disability is not a niche concern. It is a mainstream human experience.
Disabled academics, campaigners and professionals have contributed sophisticated thinking on climate justice, resilience and sustainable communities for many years. Yet their expertise remains marginalised. This is part of a wider failure to trust disabled professionals as experts in our own lives. Too often governments consult about disabled people rather than with disabled people, and policies are weakened as a result.
My own experiences illustrate how everyday prejudice feeds this wider culture. I am frequently criticised for using plastic drinking straws because they enable me to drink safely. The irony is obvious. I use perhaps twenty reusable plastic straws each year, washing and reusing them repeatedly, while the average household throws away vastly more plastic packaging every week. The problem is not the straw. The problem is a society that is quicker to judge disabled people's survival than its own consumption.
The same assumptions appear within organisations. Throughout my career, I have experienced exclusion from meetings, discriminatory pricing at conferences and networks, and persistent suggestions that disabled employees represent a burden rather than an asset. These attitudes are justified using the language of cost and efficiency while ignoring the value, expertise and contribution disabled people make.
Perhaps nowhere was this clearer than during the COVID-19 pandemic. Disabled people experienced widespread failures in protection, support and recognition. The use of Do Not Resuscitate notices without proper consultation, the devastating death toll in institutional settings, delayed vaccine prioritisation and inadequate financial support for those shielding exposed how quickly disabled lives could become politically expendable. Those failures were not accidents. They reflected longstanding inequalities that the government had failed to address long before the pandemic arrived.
The government must recognise that disability equality is not a specialist issue to be delegated to equality teams. It is fundamental to effective environmental, economic and social policy. Every climate strategy, every infrastructure project and every sustainability programme should be judged by one simple question: does this reduce inequality, or does it deepen it?
Most people will experience disability themselves or love someone who does. As populations age, disability becomes an increasingly universal part of the human condition. Sustainable development that excludes disabled people is therefore neither sustainable nor equitable.
The former Disability Commissioner at the Equality and Human Rights Commission warned over a decade ago that disabled people risked living in what he described as a form of "social apartheid". Despite greater visibility, many were becoming increasingly isolated as economic and social systems changed around them. That warning remains painfully relevant today.
My own research explored the absence of language that enables organisations and governments to recognise these inequalities. When disability is omitted from strategic conversations, exclusion becomes normalised. Policies appear neutral while producing profoundly unequal outcomes. This cultural toxicity often goes unnoticed, allowing institutions to avoid accountability for the human rights of disabled people.
Climate policy cannot succeed if it leaves millions behind. Governments must stop treating disability as an afterthought and start recognising disabled people as essential partners in creating a sustainable future. Environmental justice and disability justice are inseparable. We will never achieve one without the other.
No comments:
Post a Comment