The impacts of a changing climate – from unprecedented rainfall and landslides to heatwaves fuelled by warming seas – are increasingly being felt across New Zealand.
Author
- Raven Cretney
Senior Lecturer, Department of Tourism, Sport and Society, Lincoln University, New Zealand
But that doesn’t mean they’re being shared equally.
During the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Weekend floods , in which an entire summer’s worth of rain fell in one day, the emergency response was heavily criticised after disabled people struggled to access support.
One tetraplegic man, evacuated from his home, reportedly spent the night in a police station after no hospital or rest home could accommodate him.
More recently, amid flooding in Oamaru last month , one woman trying to evacuate her blind nephew and another who uses a wheelchair found floodwaters made it impossible to push the wheelchair to her vehicle, leaving them stranded.
Extreme weather events like these are just one part of the picture. In my recently published research , those I interviewed described a wide range of climate-related concerns.
But there was a common message: disabled people want not only to be heard, but to play a leading role in guiding how New Zealand adapts to a changing climate.
‘The deck is stacked’
A range of disproportionate impacts on disabled people were cited in New Zealand’s latest national climate change risk assessment .
Yet disabled people are still too often overlooked in climate policy and adaptation planning. Of 123 central government climate policy documents we analysed, only 29 mentioned disability at all and just seven discussed it in any substantive way.
The pattern is reflected internationally. One global study of more than 1,600 articles on adaptation initiatives found only 1% explicitly considered disabled people.
Even before climate change is considered, many disabled people in Aotearoa face barriers that affect their health, wellbeing and financial security.
They are less likely to be in paid employment, more likely to live in substandard rental housing, and more likely to experience material hardship and poverty. These existing inequities leave many with fewer resources to prepare for, respond to and recover from climate-related impacts.
These impacts are often compounded for disabled people who experience other forms of marginalisation, including Māori, Pacific, migrant and refugee communities. As one study participant put it: “the deck is stacked against people”.
When discussing climate risks, those I interviewed raised issues from extreme heat to food security. Still, the ongoing impact of extreme weather events proved the greatest and most immediate concern.
Participants identified barriers across emergency preparedness, response and recovery.
This included information that was not available in accessible formats, a lack of inclusive disaster risk reduction programmes, inaccessible temporary accommodation and financial barriers to preparing for emergencies.
Many also described difficulties accessing safe and timely evacuation, with evacuation centres and emergency services often proving inaccessible. They wanted emergency information to include practical details, such as whether evacuation centres could accommodate disabled people.
Power outages created other challenges. Many disabled people rely on electricity not only for medical equipment, but also to charge mobility aids such as powered wheelchairs.
Experiences like these left many feeling that disabled people are not prioritised in emergency planning or response efforts, ultimately eroding trust in the system.
The value of lived experience
It would be a mistake, however, to view disabled people only as those at greater risk.
Those I spoke with repeatedly emphasised that their lived experience gives them valuable expertise in adapting to change. After all, disabled people and their whānau are already well versed in adapting to an inaccessible world.
As one participant observed, living with disability often means “thinking about things nobody wants to happen”. That experience gives disabled people valuable expertise in anticipating risk and adapting to disruption.
There are already promising examples. In Auckland, the Disability Led Climate Adaptation pilot has funded six projects, including an accessible adaptation app and educational films created by tāngata whaikaha Māori.
Elsewhere, the Disabled Person’s Assembly has worked with Civil Defence and emergency services in Christchurch and Dunedin to improve disability-informed preparedness.
The Wellington Region Emergency Management Office has produced an emergency preparedness guide developed by and for disabled people.
As climate impacts become more frequent and severe, the disabled community must be at the forefront of work to adapt, as key stakeholders and agents for change.
The work to build a more accessible, climate-adapted future is necessary to build a more adaptive, creative and diverse future where no one is left behind.
