When a heat wave swept through Montreal in the summer of 2018, something troubling emerged in the mortality data: people with schizophrenia accounted for 25.8 percent of heat-related deaths, despite representing just 0.6 percent of the city's population. The antipsychotic medications many patients rely on reduce the body's ability to regulate temperature, turning what is dangerous for everyone into something deadly for this community. This stark disparity is a window into a much larger problem: 1.3 billion people worldwide—one-sixth of humanity—have been largely invisible in the rooms where climate policy is made.
That may finally be changing. In February 2026, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change formally recognized a Disability Caucus, giving disabled people a formal voice in global climate negotiations for the first time. The new caucus represents 120 organizations advocating for the rights of people with disabilities within climate discussions. After five years of campaigning by disability researchers, charities, and advocacy groups—including the International Disability Alliance, which brings together 14 global and regional disability organizations—this milestone represents a turning point in climate justice.
The timing matters enormously. People with disabilities are two to four times more likely to die or be injured in climate-related emergencies like heat waves, flooding, and storms. Beyond physical vulnerability, barriers like inaccessible evacuation routes, power outages that disrupt life-saving equipment, and heightened exposure to infectious diseases compound the risks. People with psychosocial disabilities face particularly acute dangers during heat events: research shows they are three times more likely to die during heat waves than the general population.
Dr. Katie McWilliams, a disabled researcher at the UCL Warning Research Centre, has developed a Mental Health Vulnerability Index—the first tool of its kind—designed to help reduce the mental health inequalities that emerge during climate change. Without formal representation in global climate discussions, such innovations have historically struggled to gain traction. The newly recognized caucus could change that dynamic.
At recent climate negotiations in Bonn, Germany, observers noticed growing momentum for disability-inclusive climate action, largely driven by disabled delegates making their needs visible. The caucus has already begun coordinating advocacy campaigns and is working toward the deeper recognition of full constituency status, which would grant it equal standing with other official observer organizations at future summits.
More than 20 percent of the world's poorest people have some form of disability, making them simultaneously the most vulnerable to climate impacts and the most underrepresented in adaptation planning. The recognition of the Disability Caucus is a signal that the international community is beginning to close that gap. For the 1.3 billion people who have long been absent from the tables where their futures are decided, the seat is finally, concretely, there.