Most climate policies worldwide do not consider the rights of people with disabilities

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This week:

• Most climate policies worldwide do not consider the rights of people with disabilities
• What the oil companies knew about global warming
• Pressure is on to start mining the deep sea

Most climate policies worldwide do not consider the rights of people with disabilities

What On Earth53:55Why disability inclusion is crucial to climate justice

This week, a professor tells us why he's speaking up for disability and climate. We check in with a science advisor for the federal government. And, a look at standards for clean electricity, at home and in Hawaii.

While there is increasing concern and action around climate change, a new report shows that the world's governments have largely ignored people with disabilities who can be disproportionately affected by extreme heat, for example in their climate mitigation and adaptation plans.

The report, which was released by McGill University's Disability-Inclusive Climate Action Research Program (DICARP), found that fewer than one-third of countries even mention disability in their climate policies, and when they do, it is minimal.

"There's nothing in these policies that had concrete mechanisms to include people with disabilities, to consult them and to ensure that their rights are respected in climate actions," said Sbastien Jodoin, director of DICARP and Canada Research Chair in Human Rights and the Environment.

"We definitely need more research and dialogue to bring people's disabilities and their rights to the forefront of the discussions around climate change," Jodoin told What On Earth host Laura Lynch. "The reality is that ableism is still very pervasive in society."

Jodoin (seen in the photo above) speaks from experience he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) in 2015. Not only does extreme heat cause intense fatigue in people with MS, it triggers tiny electric shocks along the spinal cord. These symptoms made Jodoin's first few summers after his diagnosis very difficult.

He quickly found and purchased an advanced cooling vest and sought further treatments for his condition, which he says is now under control. But he acknowledges that he has advantages others don't.

"Those of us who have certain privileges will be affected differently by climate change," Jodoin said. "That's a huge focus of my work not just looking at how people with disabilities are affected by climate change, but also how women, girls, racialized communities, Indigenous peoples with disabilities are also disproportionately affected by climate change."

Jodoin argues that overlooking people with disabilities in climate plans is a clear violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and is counterproductive to a more inclusive and resilient society.

Jodoin's experiences with MS eventually led him to establish DICARP, an organization dedicated to researching and advocating for disability-inclusive climate action. DICARP's research shows that Canada's climate plans consider the rights of several minorities but not those of the disability community.

For example, current climate plans rarely consider those with schizophrenia in heat wave mitigation and adaptation. One-quarter of the people who died during the 2018 Montreal heat wave had schizophrenia, a death rate that Jodoin says is 500 times their proportion of the Quebec population.

One key reason for this is that people with schizophrenia take medication that makes them more sensitive to heat. This group also tends to be poorer, more marginalized and oftentimes lacks access to a dedicated support network. The City of Montreal now prioritizes people with schizophrenia as one of the vulnerable groups that need to be protected and require additional services during heat waves.

Jodoin maintains that when governments create plans that are disability-inclusive, it benefits the wider community and helps further the country's transition to a low-carbon economy.

"If we can make our mass transit systems accessible to people with mobility impairments, we're not just helping those people we're helping the parents with a stroller who want to take the subway, we're helping the person who was injured that week and the person who's elderly," Jodoin said.

He has yet to have any formal conversation with the Canadian government but anticipates things will gain momentum soon. Last week, he gave a keynote speech at a meeting of the G7-Disability Commissioners in Berlin, Germany.

What On Earth reached out to Carla Qualtrough, Canada's minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion, for a response to Jodoin's report. Tara Beauport, Qualtrough's press secretary, responded by saying the minister attended the G7 Summit and plans to set up a formal meeting with Jodoin to discuss the report.

Jodoin remains hopeful that change is on the horizon. DICARP's next step is to launch a report on disability inclusion in Canada's climate policies in November and to present the latest research at the COP27 climate summit in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, that month.

"Around the world and in Canada, we've learned over the last 10 years about how to include women and Indigenous peoples in climate action," Jodoin said. "I'm hoping that we can build on those experiences to bring in the disability community."

Dannielle Piper

Reader feedback

Natalie Stechyson's article on the increasing interest in bidets stirred up intense interest from readers.

Martin Courcelles:

"Thanks so much for writing this article. We've been using a bidet seat on our toilet since 2016 and never looked back. When everyone was scrambling for toilet paper at the start of the pandemic, we just couldn't understand why people weren't looking into that technology. It's really a no-brainer. Cleaning yourself up with a bidet is much more efficient and hygienic. I really do miss it when I'm at a friend's place and have to clean up with old yucky toilet paper."

Jane Ogle Hastings:

"For years I've been using a PureSpa bidet attachment from Brondell in California that has been an absolute lifesaver for me, given my orthopedic problems, which prevent me from twisting, reaching, etc. It's relatively inexpensive, not electric, has adjustable hot and cold water, easily attaches to any toilet and to the under-sink hot water line via a simple hose, etc. I've dreaded what would happen if this attachment were to go off the market and so am very encouraged to see that bidets are the coming thing. I don't use toilet paper at all just have it for my occasional visitors!"

Monica Graham:

"Instead of installing a bidet (expense, manufacturing process, bathroom space, water use), reuse a plastic squirt bottle like a shampoo bottle. Clean it well, fill with water and keep near the toilet. Spray your bottom parts front to back until they GOTTA be clean, dab dry. Two small squares of [toilet paper] will do OR cut-up and re-useable squares of old T-shirts, towels, etc."

Monty Samson:

"Enjoyed reading the article on bidets rather than flush toilets and toilet paper. How about doing an article on composting toilets as another environmental option? We have used a Clivus Multrum composting toilet unit in our rural home for 40-plus years that turns human waste and kitchen waste (discarded vegetable matter) into compost that we spread each year on our landscaped areas and even parts of our garden. We have saved hundreds of gallons of well water each year without a flush toilet and this has allowed us to recycle our waste water from sinks and the tub into our raspberries in summer and our forest in winter because it is free of human waste and not a risk to anyone or anything.

"[The composting toilet] is about the size of a second furnace in our basement and our bathroom is odour-free all the time because of a small, continuous exhaust fan on the roof that draws house air into the unit and then dumps it outside."

Write us atwhatonearth@cbc.ca.

Old issues of What on Earth? are right here.

CBC News recently launched a dedicated climate page, which can be found here.

Also, check out our radio show and podcast. The world is watching the catastrophic flooding in Pakistan, but what financial responsibility should wealthy countries like Canada take for the climate-linked devastation? This week on What On Earth, Pakistan's ambassador to the United Nations, Munir Akram, tells us how Canada can be a leader in the international response.What On Earth now airs on Sundays at 11 a.m. ET, 11:30 a.m. in Newfoundland and Labrador. Subscribe on your favourite podcast app or hear it on demand at CBC Listen.

The Big Picture:What oil companies knew

At this point in history, few people can question the fact of climate change. Sure, there is plenty of debate about the scale of action required to head off the most catastrophic impacts, but given that nearly 100 per cent of scientists agree on the existence of human-caused climate change, denial is no longer a tenable position. Ironically, some of the organizations that benefited most from climate denial i.e. oil companies have historically been the most astute in showing what's in store for the environment.

For example, an investigation by the site InsideClimate News a few years ago found that Exxon knew about the problem at least as far back as 1977, when one of its senior scientists told managers "there is general scientific agreement that the most likely manner in which mankind is influencing the global climate is through carbon dioxide release from the burning of fossil fuels." Exxon has denied that this was the company's official conclusion, and indeed it questioned the science for many years. InsideClimate News also obtained a technical report showing that back in 1982, the company's scientists predicted that by 2019, atmospheric CO2 would reach 415 parts per million and, indeed, they were right.

About a decade later, in 1991, Royal Dutch Shell produced a documentary detailing what a changing climate would do to the natural world. The film contained a graphic that projected that by 2020, global warming would be in the range of one to two degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial times. By most measures, it's currently in the range of 1.1 C to 1.2 C.

Hot and bothered: Provocative ideas from around the web

• The world's most powerful solar telescope has captured startlingly detailed close-up images of the sun. As one outlet put it, the surface looks a bit like a shag rug.

• A new study has found that more than three-quarters of the plastic waste bobbing up and down in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is debris from fishing by nations including Japan, China, South Korea, the U.S. and yes, Canada.

Pressure is on to start mining the deep sea. Is it worth it?

A battle is brewing over the future of the ocean floor that pits the fate of this little-known ecosystem against humanity's demand for critical minerals and a Vancouver company is leading the charge.

The Metals Company (TMC), formerly known as DeepGreen Metals, wants to mine potato-sized rocks known as polymetallic nodules, which contain metals in demand for electric vehicles, solar panels and more.

These nodules lay on the sea floor, some four to six kilometres below the surface and outside the jurisdiction of any country, where the regulatory body, the International Seabed Authority (ISA), has issued exploration permits but never allowed commercial mining.

Despite more than a decade of discussion, the ISA hasn't yet created regulations to let deep-sea mining happen. But last year, the tiny Pacific island nation of Nauru, in partnership with TMC, triggered a UN treaty provision called the two-year rule that will force the ISA to establish regulations or "provisionally" allow mining anyway in less than a year from now by July 9, 2023.

While TMC and other firms eager to mine argue deep-sea metals are urgently needed for the clean-energy transition, those opposed including environmental groups and a trio of Pacific nations say moving too quickly is likely to risk a sea floor ecosystem that's been millenia in the making.

The pitch behind deep-sea mining is to meet the demand of what the World Economic Forum calls a new era, where "the Age of Oil draws to a close, and a new 'age of metals' is set to dawn."

Indeed, the International Energy Agency says there will be a "huge increase" in the need for minerals like cobalt, copper, manganese and nickel. They're all found in polymetallic nodules.

By 2024, TMC wants to mine in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ), an abyssal plain between Hawaii and Mexico with the highest known concentration of nodules.

"When you start adding up the metal intensity of moving away from fossil fuels we have to make land-based mining more efficient, but we also have to explore new frontiers," said CEO Gerard Barron in a recent interview with CBC. "We don't have the luxury of saying 'No' to the ocean."

However, there's disagreement on whether deep-sea mining is necessary. An analysis by the Institute for Sustainable Futures in Sydney, Australia, looked at various decarbonization scenarios and found demand could be met with known land-based sources and increased recycling.

Sven Teske, associate professor at the University of Technology Sydney and research director at the institute, thinks money would be better spent improving the environmental and human rights record of operations on land than turning to the sea.

"We [would] destroy the last untouched environment on our planet with no good reason," he said.

That environment cold, dark and extremely high-pressure looks quite alien. Those who have studied it, such as Craig Smith, a deep-sea ecologist and professor emeritus at the University of Hawaii, say the CCZ is among the most biodiverse places in the abyssal ocean.

"Most of the species, 90 per cent of them, are new to science. Every time we put a sample down, we bring up species that scientists have never seen before," said Smith.

Removing the nodules, which take a million years to grow only a few millimetres, would destroy the habitat for any creature that depends on that patch of sea floor. Sediment plumes clouding the water and noise pollution are also concerns.

A recent paper in Science by Smith and colleagues estimates one mining operation would produce noise at levels known to disturb whales about five kilometres away, and exceed ambient noise levels up to 500 kilometres away.

Barron maintains deep-sea operations could be more sustainable than ones on land.

The ISA has established protected no-mining areas in the CCZ, which Smith says will help maintain biodiversity in the region. However, he's concerned what would happen if all 17 companies with permits to explore in the zone were allowed to mine at once with noise travelling long distances and reaching fish and migratory whales.

Citing these concerns, environmental groups including MiningWatch Canada have petitioned the Canadian government to support a moratorium on deep-sea mining.

"We definitely need to stop climate change and the heating of the planet. But we have to think about doing it in such a way that doesn't get us from the frying pan into the fire," said Catherine Coumans, Asia-Pacific program co-ordinator for Mining Watch Canada.

In a statement, Global Affairs Canada said the government is working with the ISA on the negotiation of "sound regulations on seabed mining, which will provide effective protection of the marine environment and ongoing monitoring of environmental impacts."

If mining is allowed, Smith would rather see just one operation at first, and for scientists to "study the heck out of it" to understand the impact to the CCZ of chronic disturbances over years.

"I think it's important for humans to preserve the biodiversity in these remarkable habitats," even though few ever experience them, said Smith.

"Most people will never see a whale in their lifetime, but they like the idea of these remarkable organisms existing in the ocean."

Lisa Johnson

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