Disabled activists have called on Labour ministers to reverse the position of the last government on adapting to climate change, following a high court setback.
The high court ruled on Friday that the last government’s climate adaptation plan was lawful.
Doug Paulley, and fellow disabled campaigner Kevin Jordan, had joined with Friends of the Earth to challenge the UK government’s failure to protect people, property and infrastructure from climate change’s foreseeable impacts.
Their lawyers had argued that the current version of the government’s National Adaptation Programme (NAP) breached both the Climate Change Act and the Human Rights Act.
Paulley, Jordan and their lawyers are now considering an appeal against the ruling*.
Paulley had argued that disabled people were disproportionately affected by the impacts of climate change but had been “badly let down” by the last government’s NAP.
He said the Conservative government’s NAP completely failed to address the threats disabled people face from extreme weather, such as flooding and heatwaves, and power cuts during storms.
The legal case also argued that searing summer temperatures significantly impacted him because of long-term health conditions that make him susceptible to over-heating, causing distress and discomfort, and risking serious harm.
Jordan was made homeless shortly before last Christmas, when his house in Hemsby, Norfolk, was demolished after coastal erosion fuelled by rising sea levels and severe storms caused by climate change put it in severe danger of falling into the sea.
Friends of the Earth wants the new Labour government to agree that the NAP is inadequate and to amend it along the lines of recommendations from the statutory Climate Change Committee, the government’s independent climate advisor.
Paulley called on the new government to “ensure they include disabled people and our needs in all policy development from the beginning”.
He told Disability News Service: “Only by involving us and our organisations from the start can our experiences, expertise and needs be properly included.
“Climate change is happening, people are suffering, disabled people are always first against the wall in any crisis or emergency, and we need the government to do what it can to mitigate the impact and protect us as much as possible.”
He pointed to the disproportionate impact on disabled people of natural disasters caused by climate change, such as flooding in Germany in 2021 and Hurricane Katrina in the US.
Paulley, who praised the collaboration between environmentalists, disabled people and lawyers, added: “Climate change is an existential threat to disabled people.”
Jordan said he was “extremely disappointed” by the judgment.
He said: “Without a tougher set of government policies to protect us, more people will face the horror of seeing their homes, lives and livelihoods threatened by the growing impacts of our rapidly changing climate.
“It’s bad enough that communities like mine have already lost so much through the lack of foresight and planning for the foreseeable effects of climate breakdown.
“I don’t want anyone else to endure what we’ve been through. But many undoubtedly will, unless the government strengthens its adaptation plans.”
DEFRA declined to provide a statement on the new government’s position; on whether it would work with disabled people on this and other policies that would impact them; and on why the new government continued to fight the legal case when it appeared to align with Labour’s election manifesto promises.
But DEFRA said it understood that preparing for the future would mean tackling the climate and nature emergencies, but also adapting to the changes they will bring.
It welcomed the court’s judgment that the NAP was lawful but said it was committed to strengthening the approach to climate resilience and would bring forward plans in due course.
*Although they lost the case, the court ruled that the last government had breached the Equality Act’s public sector equality duty, but as it carried out an equality impact assessment after being notified of the legal case – even though this did not lead to a change in policy – it was found to have retrospectively met its legal duties
Picture: Protesters outside the Royal Courts of Justice in July, including Doug Paulley (centre, holding orange placard) and Kevin Jordan (next to Paulley, holding dark blue placard)
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