Disability Rights in Climate Policies: 2023 Status Report
November 2023
Sébastien Jodoin, Amanda Bowie-Edwards, Katherine Lofts, Chloe Rourke, Sajneet Mangat & Elham Youssefian
Released jointly with the International Disability Alliance, this report provides an up-to-date analysis of the inclusion of persons with disabilities and their rights in the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and climate adaptation policies adopted by the 195 parties to the Paris Agreement.
The report finds that only 39 states refer to persons with disabilities in their NDCs – a figure that indicates almost no progress since last year’s report. A closer look at how people with disabilities are included in these 39 NDCs reveals that most of the references to disability lack specificity and depth.
The report also demonstrates that 65 states to the Paris Agreement currently refer to people with disabilities or disability in some way in their climate adaptation policies. This is a significant increase since the first McGill / IDA status report in 2022 which found that only 46 parties had done so. Although this is an encouraging development, it still means that 67% of parties do not currently refer to people with disabilities in any way in their climate adaptation policies.
For the first time, the 2023 edition of the report assigns each country a score (out of 13) that reflects their global performance in disability-inclusive climate policymaking across both their NDCs and climate adaptation policies. In an encouraging sign, a few countries are starting to stand out in their commitment to disability-inclusive climate action, including Canada, Costa Rica, Sierra Leone, Cabo Verde, and Kiribati. On the other hand, 94 states achieve a global score of 0, which means that neither their NDCs nor their adaptation policies include even a single reference to persons with disabilities.
The report concludes that States are failing to comply with their obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and sets out a number of key recommendations for pursuing and supporting the development of disability-inclusive climate policies.
