S4 E3: #GreenJusticeAfrica: Making climate change more accessible and less ableist

<p>In conversation with Dr Yolanda Munoz</p> <p>"You cannot talk of climate change when inclusion is an afterthought".</p> <p>The <a href='https://www.chr.up.ac.za/'>Centre for Human Rights</a> is embarking on a campaign, <a href='https://www.chr.up.ac.za/green-justice-africa'>#GreenJusticeAfrica</a> to address the impact of climate change on the protection and fulfilment of human rights in Africa. Climate change is now one of the biggest threats to human rights globally. In this episode, Dr Yolanda Munoz, an academic and advocate for the rights of people with disabilities and a full-time wheelchair user, discusses the impact of climate change on the rights of persons with disabilities.</p> <p>There is no climate justice without disability justice. Climate change is currently the central political and moral issue around the globe. It affects everyone, but not equally. For persons with disabilities, the threat is compounded by discrimination, marginalisation, and other pre-existing inequalities. From the 1990s, disability rights started to receive more attention in the African Commission. Though the African continent has made significant strides to include persons with disabilities in the society, the same cannot be said of climate justice. The even adaptation and mitigation practices, which seek to combat the effects of climate change may do harm to disability communities in Africa. In order to reduce such harms in the present and avoid them in the future, Africa must employ ethical frameworks that bring disability justice to the forefront of climate justice. Disability justice should be an integral part of conversations in climate change.</p> <p>Professionally, Dr Yolanda Munoz has explored the social arrangements behind the unquestioned exclusion of people with disabilities. She has also served as a consultant for the <a href='https://www.iadb.org/en'>Inter-American Development Bank</a>, as Program Officer with the Disability Rights Fund, as an external consultant for <a href='https://www.greengrants.org/'>Glob