Thank you to the school strikers for having me speak today. I’m Zoe and I am disabled. I have Autism and Schizoaffective Disorder, and I want to talk a bit today about disability and climate change.
1 in 6 Australians, or 4.4 million people, are disabled. That is a sizable number, and many of you will be disabled yourself, or have friends or family who are disabled.
Climate Justice means addressing the needs of those people most affected by climate change, and implementing solutions that are fair and equitable. This includes the young and future generations, who have organised this protest today, older generations, Indigenous people, and disabled people.
People with disability are not often considered in Australian climate policy discussions even though we are disproportinately affected by climate change and emergencies and extreme weather events.
People with disability are affected more because of our disabilities, inaccessible design, and also because many of us live in poverty compared to non-disabled people.
In the Paris Agreement (2015) only 37 out of 192 States Parties included disability, which shows how overlooked we are. People with disability and Disabled People’s Organisations need to be included in policy making at an international level, as well as at National, State, and local levels.
Some examples of how disability interacts with climate change include: some disabilities negatively affect the ability to regulate body temperature which can lead to overheating at high temperatures; the many disabled people living in poverty find that poverty reduces access to food at times of drought, crop failures, and food shortages; during emergencies people with disabilities may lose Assistive Technology and be unable to access visual or audio news and warnings or move to escape from risk; respiratory conditions are worsened by climate change lengthening the pollen season and increasing its intensity as well as increasing the frequency of thunderstorms; people with Schizophrenia have up to 50% higher chance of dying in heatwaves than non-disabled people; and people with disability suffer high rates of violence, including police violence, and unfortunately climate change will increase social stress which is linked to increased violence.
There are only around 6 to 9 years left before we have used up the global Greenhouse Gas Budget for a 50% chance of limiting global warming to 1.5C, so we need to act rapidly to reduce our Greenhouse Gas Emissions, and stay hopeful because even if we overshoot 1.5C we can aim for other targets like 1.7C. We must keep working together to limit climate change and to protect the most vulnerable.
Zoe Emily Mithen 