It is popular to describe the climate and nature crisis as “something that will affect us all”, but this universalising language erases the complexity of the issue. The truth is, the climate crisis is not affecting everybody equally. Exposure to toxic air, rising energy bills, and poorly insulated homes are not conditions that affect people randomly: rather, they reflect persistent structural oppression. These systems of oppression simultaneously harm people and degrade our environment, as they shape the design and implementation of climate-unfriendly policies. Climate justice, therefore, must address intersecting systems of oppression like racism and ableism – starting by centring the lived experiences of those most affected.
Communities with lived experiences of environmental racism are too often excluded from decision making spaces. When, in fact, they are included, this can be a performative, ‘tick-boxing’ exercise, rather than an equitable distribution of power to shape the conversation and the outcomes. Similarly, communities with lived experience of eco-ableism also face the trade-off between exclusion or performative inclusion in climate conversations. In many environmental spaces, technical expertise is still seen as the primary means of addressing the climate and nature crisis. While this is essential, climate solutions are incomplete without the lived experiences and leadership of those particularly affected, such as those with racialised and Disabled identities. Those disproportionately experiencing the crisis must be able to access and shape these conversations, because when the people most affected are part of the solution, everyone benefits.
Mainstream climate conversations, however, often treat racialised and Disabled communities bearing the brunt of the climate crisis as monoliths. This fails to account for how different forms of oppression and inequality intersect and compound. A result of treating these communities as uniform monoliths is that these conversations frequently fail to consider the diversity of lived experiences when shaping policy and solutions. This effectively excludes Disabled people from Black, Asian, and minoritised ethnic communities from the conversation, although they experience additional and compounding barriers that are rarely reflected in dominant environmental narratives.
Environmental harm does not exist in a vacuum for Disabled people from Black, Asian, and minoritised ethnic communities. Rather, it occurs alongside the existing inequalities in housing, health, income, and access to services that disproportionately affect them. This is because, as argued by intersectional academics like Ruth Gilmore, these harms and injustices have the same structural roots. Poor quality housing, exposure to pollution, insecure employment, and barriers to healthcare mean that the climate and nature crisis exacerbates the injustices faced by this community.
Nonetheless, Disabled people from Black, Asian, and minoritised ethnic communities are often treated as anomalies, ignored and othered within both identity-based movements and the climate movement. Climate spaces are not currently designed to listen to these voices. This exclusion is a result of inaccessible spaces, the undervaluation of lived experience, and structural biases in decision-making. This exclusion is also reflected in the research, where the experiences of Disabled people from Black, Asian, and minoritised ethnic communities are underrepresented in climate studies. This is not only a failure of inclusion, but also, an unsustainable approach to change.
Disability Rights UK and Race Equality Foundation are collaborating to ensure that the lived experiences of our communities inform and shape climate and nature conversations. Together, we are working with a key principle in mind: changes made to protect those most at risk frequently improve conditions for everyone. Failing to include Disabled people from Black, Asian, and minoritised ethnic communities means losing valuable insights into the interactions between the climate and nature crisis and other forms of structural inequality. Moreover, building effective climate action requires more than technical solutions. Centring the communities disproportionately affected by the crisis, such as people from Black, Asian, and minoritised ethnic communities and Disabled people, and recognising the experiences at the intersections, will result in fairer and more effective climate action.
