Tag: public policy

People on a boat pass supplies to others on a neighboring boat.

Disability-Inclusive Climate Action in Bangladesh: Gaps and Opportunities

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Image courtesy of Matthew “Hezzy” Smith.

By Matthew “Hezzy” Smith

Bangladesh, at the frontlines of global climate change, provides a critical litmus test for advocacy to ensure that persons with disabilities are included in climate change mitigation and adaptation. The disastrous effects of last summer’s historic flooding in the Sunamganj and Sylhet districts on persons with disabilities show that while the country’s laws and policies gesture toward inclusion, considerable gaps remain between policy and practice.

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Empty Classroom In Elementary School With Whiteboard And Desks.

Educating for Disability and Climate Change

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By David Liebmann

Children starting kindergarten in 2023 will be 32 years old in 2050, the year the Paris Climate Accord signatories agreed to reach net zero carbon emissions. Those 32-year-olds will have grown up with signs of climate change appearing everywhere around them. They must learn enough in school about the changing global environment to lead themselves and the next generation into a livable future. This education should also incorporate teaching about disability and the disparate impacts of climate change on people with disabilities.

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UN United Nations general assembly building with world flags flying in front - First Avenue, New York City, NY, USA

Disability Participation and Empowerment in the Context of Climate Action: A Human Rights Obligation

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By Elisavet Athanasia Alexiadou

States have a human rights obligation to promote the full, meaningful, and informed participation of persons with disabilities in the context of policy-making and decision-making processes about climate change.

This essay seeks to explain the basis for this obligation, outline its scope, and elucidate how states can ensure its fulfillment.

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Diverse individuals having conference video call on tv screen monitor in meeting room.

Climate Resilience Planning: A Life-Saving Entry Point for Incorporating Disability Voices into Policy

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By Rafaello Adler-Abramo

Incorporating disability issues into general resilience planning is not only a life-saving necessity, but also a timely opportunity for broader disability inclusion.

Resilience planning is currently expanding and often well-funded. It is expected to vary by locale and populations, so differing needs are assumed. Additionally, much resilience planning is being developed de novo, possibly allowing easier incorporation of disability needs in primary planning, rather than being relegated to “special needs” addenda. This strategy may represent a plausible on-ramp for mainstream incorporation of Disability needs and knowledge.

Recently, I successfully advocated for the incorporation of persons with disabilities’ (PWD) needs into a Massachusetts state-facilitated municipal resilience planning program, in time for their five-year update. While planners’ guidance previously urged attention to needs of numerous groups identified as experiencing heightened vulnerability, PWDs’ specific needs had not yet been included.

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Giant Sea Wall, Jakarta, Indonesia - August 28 2021: A four meters wall built to prevent sea water comes in the inner land due to sea level rise. The fastest sinking city. (Masjid Tenggelam)

Examining the Climate Change-Migration Nexus from a Disability Lens

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By Divya Goyal

Growing interest in recognizing and promoting migration as a form of climate adaptation risks exacerbating existing inequalities and generating new ones for disabled people.

Scholars, policymakers, and advocates in this field need to pay greater attention to the impact of climate-induced migration on disabled people, document the experiences of disabled people with climate-induced migration and displacement — with a particular focus on their vulnerabilities and capabilities — and deliberate on strategies to build the adaptive capacity and resilience of disabled people.

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small person standing with megaphone speaking toward an ear with a red "x" over it.

Beyond Vulnerability: Disability, Epistemic Agency, and Climate Action

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By Sarah Bell

When considered in climate policy, disabled people are typically homogenized as climate “victims;” a framing that does little to address the social or political conditions that create these circumstances or to recognize the potential contributions of disabled people as knowledgeable agents of change.

This piece highlights the failure to recognize the knowledges of disabled people as a form of epistemic injustice, whereby the capacity of disabled people as knowers or “epistemic agents” that produce, use and/or transmit knowledge is repeatedly misrecognized or undermined.

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wildfire; burning pine forest in the smoke and flames.

Call for Submissions – Symposium on Disability and Climate Change

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The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School, the Harvard Law School Project on Disability (HPOD), and the Disability-Inclusive Climate Action Research Programme (DICARP) at McGill Law Faculty are pleased to announce a call for submissions for the following digital symposium hosted by Bill of Health:

BEYOND VULNERABILITY: THE RIGHTS AND AGENCY OF PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES IN THE CLIMATE CRISIS

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Home innovation technology concept illustration.

Call for Abstracts — 2022 Petrie-Flom Center Annual Conference: Diagnosing in the Home

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Contribute to the 2022 Petrie-Flom Center Annual Conference and subsequent book project!

Through October 14, 2021, the Petrie-Flom Center is accepting abstracts for its annual conference. The 2022 annual conference will focus on ethical, legal, and regulatory challenges and opportunities around at home digital health technology.

This conference will engage with the vision for a 21st century health care system that embraces the potential of at home digital products to support diagnoses, improve care, encourage caregivers, maximize pandemic resilience, and allow individuals to stay within the home when preferable. The goals of this conference and subsequent book project are to consider the ethical, sociological, regulatory, and legal challenges and opportunities presented by the implementation of digital products that support clinical diagnosis and/or treatment in patients’ homes over the next decade.

Interested in submitting an abstract, but want to know more about what we’re looking for? Read through the following frequently asked questions.

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Young male doctor in telehealth concept

Call for Abstracts: Looking Forward to a Post-Pandemic Landscape

Carmel Shachar Leave a comment

By Carmel Shachar and Katie Kraschel

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted virtually every facet of day-to-day life.

This disruption has forced us to examine baseline choices and assumptions about how to deliver health care, participate in public discourse, provide access to education, and support the workforce. This “great revision” will continue in several iterative stages: an immediate response to the crisis, a modulation as the pandemic continues, and a resolution into a “new normal.”

The Petrie-Flom Center and the Solomon Center for Health Law Policy are interested in tracking when crisis settles into the new normal and articulating how public policy and law should respond to that evolution.

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