A Case of Epistemic Injustice: Prioritising Disability Knowledges in Climate Adaptation

Abstract

Climate change poses major risks to life and livelihoods worldwide, acting as a threat multiplier through compounding and creating new forms of social inequality. Disabled people—including an estimated 16% of the global population—are disproportionately impacted by these risks, in part through the impacts of different impairments and the association with wider disadvantage, and also through eco-ableism; the failure to consider disabled people's needs and insights in climate adaptation decision-making, or to recognise that responses to climate change are making life harder for many disabled people. In this paper, we draw on a specific regional focus (the United Kingdom) to highlight how such exclusion constitutes a form of epistemic injustice; a failure to recognise, affirm or embed disabled people's knowledges in climate adaptation efforts. We share findings from an ongoing collaborative programme of interdisciplinary research that is examining opportunities for responses to the climate crisis to build fairer communities, building on the priorities and insights of disabled people. The wider study includes local and national law and policy reviews, alongside in-depth qualitative and arts-based research with people who are disabled, d/Deaf, neurodivergent and people with long-term health conditions within three case study cities. This paper focuses on the findings of interviews and analysis conducted between February 2024 and March 2026 in the first two case study cities: Bristol and Glasgow, United Kingdom. In the paper, we discuss five conditions of epistemic injustice—the stakeholder, socio-economic, prejudice, disadvantage and epistemic conditions—to provide granular insights into how the knowledges of disabled people are being marginalised in ways that are increasingly detrimental to collective societal efforts to build just, sustainable and climate-safe futures.