Disabled Leadership for New Eco-Social Contracts: Reflections from Amnesty UK’s Intersectional Panel on International Day of Persons with Disabilities 2025.

As climate breakdown, austerity, and authoritarian politics intensify, disabled people are often positioned as either passive victims or an afterthought in policy development. Our Global Research and Action Network for a New Eco-Social Contract (GRAN ESC) working group on Disabilities, Intersectionalities, and Eco-Social Contracts, co-led by Chris Hopkins and myself, was established to challenge that trend. We operate on a simple premise: there can be no just transition, nor a legitimate eco-social contract, without disabled leadership at every stage. Our recent contribution to Amnesty UK’s Disabled People’s Human Rights Network event, 'Intersectional responses to the threats of the anti-rights movement,' examined what this leadership entails in practice. The panel 'Rising Strong Together: Championing Disability Rights and Justice on an Overheating Planet' assembled expertise from public health, policy, design, DDPOs, local government and community spheres to explore how climate, disability, and human rights are deeply interconnected.

From Eco Ableism to Eco Social Contracts

A recurring theme in the discussion was eco ableism, where climate and environmental policies assume a narrow, normed body and mind. Examples range from 'green' transport schemes that remove essential curbside access, to home retrofit programmes that disrupt care arrangements without accessible information or aftercare, to consultations held in formats that exclude people with energy-limiting conditions or communication access needs. These are not marginal design flaws. They are structural choices that risk turning climate action into a new vector of exclusion.

The social model of disability is essential here. As Inclusion London(3) reminds us, individuals may have impairments, but they are disabled by barriers found in physical environments, institutions, information systems, and attitudes. When green policies create these barriers again, they violate the spirit of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), (4) which mandates that states ensure full and equal enjoyment of all human rights for disabled people and actively remove discriminatory obstacles, not merely on paper.

An intersectional moment

At the same time, we are facing a broader anti-rights backlash targeting disabled people alongside racialised communities, migrants, LGBTQI+ individuals, gender minorities, and those living in poverty. Across different regions, rollbacks are often justified as efforts to 'protect children,' uphold 'tradition,' or boost 'efficiency,' but they ultimately lead to reduced support, restricted spaces free from surveillance, and decreased civic participation.

Kimberlé Crenshaw’s concept of intersectionality offers a valuable framework to understand this.(1) People do not experience climate risk, austerity, or discrimination from a single perspective. Disability intersects with race, migration status, gender, social class, socio-economic status, age, religion, sexuality, and citizenship in ways that intensify harm. A 'universal' green policy that ignores these intersections risks entrenching inequalities for those already pushed furthest to the margins.

Panel speakers demonstrated how this plays out in concrete ways: disabled migrants facing hostile environment policies and extreme weather with limited shelter options; racialised disabled communities living in areas with higher air pollution and flood risks; neurodivergent individuals managing inaccessible emergency communications during climate crises. These experiences are not anomalies but signs of where existing systems are failing. We must move beyond intersectional moments and foster intersectional momentum. 

Picture used: Panel members Chris Hoipkins, Natasha Trotman, Dr Cathy Mungall-Baldwin, Murrin McColl, and Suzanne Iwai in conversation. Image by: Luisa Pereira Pires.

Weathering, health equity and climate justice

Public health perspectives on the panel drew on Arline Geronimus' work on 'weathering,' which describes the accelerated biological ageing caused by chronic exposure to discrimination and material hardship.(2) Climate disruption, poor air quality and punitive welfare regimes amplify this cumulative stress, driving higher rates of chronic illness, disability and early death in already marginalised communities.

If we take weathering seriously, climate policy cannot be limited to reducing emissions. It must also reduce everyday frictions, redistribute resources and design transitions that actively counter long-term stressors. That means aligning climate strategies with UNCRPD obligations, social protection, anti-racism, and gender justice, rather than treating them as separate agendas.

Patterns for inclusive practice

The Amnesty event also showcased practical examples of disability led, intersectional climate action. Bristol’s Climate and Disability Programme (6), the Sensing Climate guides and the Inclusive Transport Toolkit demonstrate how co-production with disabled people results in more just and workable solutions. Similarly, campaigns that secured mitigations for disabled people in London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone show how targeted advocacy can both support clean air goals and protect rights.

Across these initiatives, several patterns repeat: disabled people are involved as co-designers, not simply consultees; access is budgeted and planned from the start; data collection recognises disability, race, migration and income; and accountability mechanisms are shared with Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs) and grassroots networks. These are the building blocks of a new eco-social contract grounded in human rights, solidarity and the rights of nature.

International Day of Persons with Disabilities 2025: Disabled Leadership in Focus

The 2025 theme for the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, 'Fostering disability-inclusive societies for advancing social progress,' and its emphasis on disabled leadership, resonate strongly with our panel’s conclusions. The UN’s Disability Inclusion Strategy makes clear that inclusion is not a technical add-on, but a standard for how institutions should operate.

Disabled leadership means more than having a few spokespeople. It means involving disabled and neurodivergent people in shaping climate agendas, monitoring frameworks, fiscal decisions, and local implementation. It means recognising complex embodiment, in Tobin Siebers' (7) sense, where some impairments involve limitations that adaptations cannot fully eliminate, and planning around that reality with dignity rather than scarcity thinking. It also means resourcing DPOs and intersectional movements to act not only as critics of policy but as architects of new systems.

Looking ahead

For GRAN ESC’s Disabilities, Intersectionalities and Eco Social Contracts working group, the Amnesty event highlighted that eco-social contracts worthy of the name must confront eco-ableism, centre intersectional analysis, and treat disabled people as rights-holding leaders. As people gather in places of power to mark IDPD 2025 and reflect on social progress, we will continue to advocate for eco-social contracts that are accessible by design, accountable in practice, and rooted in the lived expertise of those most affected.

When disabled leadership is at the core of our responses to climate breakdown and anti-rights movements, we do not narrow our ambitions. We expand the possible futures available to all of us.

References

(1) Crenshaw, Kimberlé. “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex.” University of Chicago Legal Forum 1989, no. 1 (1989): 139–67. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1229039.

(2) Geronimus, Arline T. Weathering: The Extraordinary Stress of Ordinary Life in an Unjust Society. New York: Little, Brown Spark, 2023.

(3) Inclusion London. “The Social Model of Disability and the Cultural Model of Deafness.” Accessed 30 September 2025. https://www.inclusionlondon.org.uk/about-us/disability-in-london/social-model/the-social-model-of-disability-and-the-cultural-model-of-deafness/.

(4) United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. 'Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).' Accessed 1 October 2025. https://social.desa.un.org/issues/disability/crpd/convention-on-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities-crpd.

(5) United Nations. “International Day of Persons with Disabilities 2025: Fostering Disability Inclusive Societies for Advancing Social Progress.” Accessed 1 October 2025. https://www.un.org/en/observances/day-of-persons-with-disabilities

(6) Sensing Climate. “Disability-inclusive Climate Action: Guides and Resources.” Accessed October 2, 2025. https://sensing-climate.com/

(7) Siebers, Tobin. ‘Complex Embodiment: Modern Disability Theory.’ In Disability Theory, 25–55. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2008. https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.309928.  Archived excerpts: https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/90197/Disability%20Theory%20Siebers.pdf]