Question

To ask the President of COP26, what steps the Government is taking to ensure its COP26 presidency helps protect the rights of persons with disabilities.

Climate action must be inclusive of people with disabilities and support their rights. We know that people with disabilities are disproportionately affected by climate change. The UK is committed to championing inclusivity throughout our COP presidency. Our dedicated civil society engagement team ensures we amplify and learn from the voices of those most affected by climate change to inspire governments to increase their ambition.

We are actively engaging the disability community to ensure that people with disabilities and their representative organisations can fully participate in the summit in November. We have set up an official-led COP26 disability-inclusive working group to guide our preparations for delivering an inclusive summit. This group comprises disabled persons’ organisations and disability representatives organisations from around the world. The COP26 civil society engagement team also runs regular open-invite calls with civil society to ensure that the UK presidency is consulting the broadest range of groups in the run-up to COP26. These calls are attended by persons with disabilities and representative organisations.

Finally, the UK also ensured in the recent Climate and Development Ministerial Chair’s Summary that the links between climate finance and advancing the inclusivity of persons with disabilities were highlighted.