Community Dialogue & Just Transition
Past Event
2022-02-17
《Climate Change x Social Issues》Climate Community Dialogue series: Climate Disaster Response of People with Disabilities
“Persons with disabilities are often among those most adversely affected in an emergency, sustaining disproportionately higher rates of morbidity and mortality, and at the same time being among those least able to have access to emergency support.”. (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2021) With the rising number of extreme weather events, climate change is threatening the health condition of Hong Kong citizens. The climate threats on the persons with disabilities are largely neglected. In light of this, on 17th February 2022, CCIL organised the fifth virtual community dialogue, themed “Climate Disaster Response of People with Disabilities”. There were three objectives, which were 1) to explore present and anticipated climate related stress and risks to disabilities, 2) to discuss current policies, practices and people’s adaptability to climate challenges, 3) to brainstorm proactive and adaptive options in response to climate change.
Mr. Chong Chan Yau, Co-founder and CEO of CCIL, also raised that “Notwithstanding there is the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, our society lacks a disaster preparedness and contingency plan, which is inclusive of the needs of the persons with disabilities.” Therefore, to help the disabled to cope with climate change, we invited ten participants from six different organisations, including non-governmental organisations (NGOs) focusing on disabled groups’ rights and disaster preparedness. They mentioned extreme weather events pose dire threats with the constraints of disabilities. They also discussed the possible approaches to overcome and adapt extreme weather conditions and climate crisis in Hong Kong. They were raising concerns of the inadequate support and contingency policies offered by the government, including insufficient access to information and inadequate evacuation and support policies for the disabled. Participants underlined the needs of corresponding support from the government to the disabled under the threats of climate change.
Via the community dialogue, CCIL hopes it could help more stakeholders to comprehend the impacts of climate change on the persons with disabilities and deliberate further actions on securing them from the climate crisis, thereby urging the government to start formulating a more comprehensive and inclusive climate adaptation plan.
We would like to express our gratitude to all the participants for their active participation and willingness to share the content with colleagues after attending this activity, in order to increase the capacity of the disabled to adapt to climate change. Here’s the list of participating organisations (according to the alphabetical order):
Participating Organisations:
Dialogue In The Dark
Hong Kong Blind Union
Hong Kong Joint Council for People with Disabilities
Hong Kong Federation of Handicapped Youth
Hong Kong Red Cross
The Hong Kong Society for the Deaf
References
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. 2021. Retrieved from https://www.ohchr.org/EN/pages/home.aspx