Second, this research must be aligned with the priorities of people with disabilities and their representative organizations in the climate crisis and aim to instigate social change to rectify current, historical or potential violations of the rights of people with disabilities. Indigenous people with disabilities must play a meaningful role and contribute to research efforts that concern them, with due respect for their spiritual connection to land, nature, and traditional knowledge. First, the co-generation of knowledge in this area must be initiated and led by a diversity of voices from disability communities, including scholars and activists who have lived experience of different disabilities and other forms of privilege or oppression tied to sex, age, race, gender, sexual orientation, colonialism, class and caste. There are three key principles that should underpin this research agenda. To be transformative, this research must be carried out through a disability rights-based approach anchored in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). In-depth, systematic, and applied research is needed to address these gaps in knowledge and support the development and implementation of disability-inclusive climate solutions. In addition, people with disabilities are negatively impacted by climate mitigation solutions that are designed without due consideration of their perspectives and requirements, for example, the total ban on plastic straws. These impacts are felt most acutely by people with disabilities that face intersecting barriers of oppression, including women, girls, Indigenous and racialized individuals, and the poor with disabilities. They face unique barriers and challenges when they are displaced by climate change, including discriminatory migration policies and inaccessible transportation and shelter options. People with disabilities are experiencing disproportionate rates of mortality and harm in heatwaves, cyclones, floods, droughts, famines, and other climate impacts. These gaps in knowledge are leading to the development and implementation of inequitable and ineffective climate solutions that undermine the human rights and dignity of people with disabilities. More broadly, scholarship is lacking on whether and how evidence and advocacy influences policymakers’ perceptions of alternative climate actions and the implications of their decisions on disability communities. There is even less research on how these efforts can be designed in ways that dismantle, rather than reinforce, existing social, physical, and economic inequities. There are very few studies examining how policies and projects to decarbonize products, services, and infrastructures, and enhance land-based carbon sequestration impact people with disabilities. The lack of research concerning the implications of initiatives addressing climate mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage for disability communities is even greater. Very little is known about how and why people with disabilities are affected by different climate impacts, the contextual factors that shape their exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity, and the solutions needed to ensure their resilience. As we will explain in this opinion, one key element of this emerging agenda for disability-inclusive climate justice is the need for in-depth and participatory action research on the intersections of disability and climate change. Around the world, disability communities are becoming increasingly vocal in calling attention to the ways in which they are disproportionally affected by climate change and the need to ensure that disability rights are respected, protected, and fulfilled in climate solutions.
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