Global disability movement demands seat at the “COP table”

10 September 2024.

Today, eight disability organisations representing both regional and global interests, sent a formal letter to members of the Paris Agreement criticising the exclusion of the disability movement from UN climate negotiations, mostly due to unnecessary bureaucracy.

The organisations explain that the UN is stalling in the creation of an official constituency of persons with disabilities, which already exists for other groups such as women and youth and for other UN frameworks.

The stalling critically hinders the disability movement’s participation in negotiations. The letter explains that “a disability constituency will give persons with disabilities equal opportunity to participate, including making plenary interventions, receiving informal advance information, ….”

The letter further makes clear that not only are persons with disabilities disproportionately impacted by climate change but that this exclusion goes against UN treaties, especially the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the UN Disability Inclusion Strategy itself.

Signatories ask Parties to the Paris Agreement to solve the situation by requesting the UNFCCC “to clarify the process of recognition of a disability constituency, and to expedite decisions on this in time for official recognition at COP 29 in Azerbaijan.”

Signatories of the letter include the International Disability Alliance, as well as regional organisations of persons with disabilities from Africa, the ASEAN region, Europe, Latin America, the Arab region, and the Pacific Islands. The International Disability and Development Consortium also signed the letter.

Additional Information

Signatories of the letter:

Contacts for IDDC

Jennifer Pitter-Lopez, Mark Barrell and Davide Ziveri
Co-coordinators of the IDDC Climate Action Task Group
IDDCClimateAction@iddcconsortium.net