Indigenous Peoples, climate change, and disability justice

Climate change has been recognized as a threat multiplier, wherein communities (i.e., elderly populations, Indigenous communities, children and youth, women, and girls, those living with disabilities, etc.) whom experience a disproportionate burden of health inequities are more vulnerable to the health impacts of climatic shifts due to a host of multi-level and dynamic structural and systemic stressors. Unfortunately, people living with disabilities have, thus far, been excluded from the climate and environmental justice movement and discourse. This chapter provides an introduction to climate justice within Indigenous communities, focusing particularly on the importance of disability justice in the context of the global climate crises.