With COP31 ongoing in Antalya, Türkiye, conversation centres on climate finance, adaptation, and loss and damage. One question must accompany these priorities: Who can actually access the protection that climate investments are intended to provide?
A cyclone warning may reach a village without reaching everyone in it. A storm-resistant shelter may remain inaccessible to a wheelchair user. An evacuation plan may offer no practical way for a person with a visual, hearing, or intellectual disability to understand a warning, reach safety or seek assistance.
This is the gap Bangladesh must confront.
Disability inclusion is often treated as a social safeguard to be added after climate programs are designed. Instead, it should be used to test whether those programs are fit for purpose.
Resilience cannot be measured only by the number of shelters built or households reached, but by whether people with different accessibility needs can benefit.
The evidence is difficult to ignore. The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction’s (UNDRR) 2023 Global Survey on Persons with Disabilities and Disasters, based on 6,342 responses from 132 countries, found that only 8% of respondents said local disaster-risk-reduction plans addressed the specific needs of persons with disabilities.
Only 11% reported awareness of national-level disaster-risk-reduction plans. More tellingly, 86% said they had not participated in community-level disaster planning. These findings expose a persistent gap between commitments to inclusion and the realities of disaster preparedness.
Bangladesh has its own evidence. A study by the Centre for Disability in Development (CDD) in Patharghata, Barguna, and Assasuni, Satkhira, surveyed 300 children and young people with disabilities aged 6 to 25. The findings showed that 93% believed extreme weather events had worsened over the previous five years, while 80% felt that persons with disabilities were more severely affected than other vulnerable groups.
More concerningly, 80% said they were not prioritized during evacuation, and 57% reported discrimination in accessing relief. 87% required regular healthcare, yet only 20% could access it. Riverbank erosion, salinity, cyclones, and flooding disrupted healthcare, education, mobility, and livelihoods.
Disasters affect not only people with disabilities but can also cause new disabilities. Injuries, psychological trauma, interrupted treatment, and the lack of rehabilitation or assistive devices can turn an emergency into a lifelong challenge. Inclusive climate action must therefore cover prevention, evacuation, healthcare, rehabilitation, and recovery -- not just relief.
The seven-point policy proposal, unveiled in Dhaka on November 5 by the National Platform for Disability-Inclusive Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation with technical support from CDD, has brought these concerns to the fore ahead of COP31.
Its recommendations include accessible warning systems and shelters, dedicated climate finance, rehabilitation, participation in policy-making, and disability-disaggregated data. The task now is to translate these recommendations into budgets, standards, institutional responsibilities, and measurable results.
That requires changing how climate projects are planned and assessed. Every publicly funded shelter, evacuation route, warning system, and emergency health facility should be assessed for accessibility before approval and again once operational.
Accessibility also requires safe toilets, usable sleeping areas, clear signage, accessible communication, and arrangements for people who need personal assistance.
Warnings should be issued through multiple channels -- audio, visual, text, and sign-language formats -- so that no single mode of communication becomes a point of failure.
Climate finance must follow the same principle. Bangladesh is seeking substantial support from international partners to implement its climate commitments. It should also demonstrate how much of that investment addresses the barriers faced by persons with disabilities.
Accessibility costs should be built into project budgets from the outset, rather than treated as optional add-ons when funds remain. Dedicated allocations matter, but so does ensuring that mainstream adaptation projects are inclusive by design.
Participation is equally important. Organizations of persons with disabilities should have meaningful roles on local disaster management committees and in the design, monitoring, and evaluation of climate programs.
Consultation after a project has been designed is not meaningful participation, and counting beneficiaries does not prove that people have influenced decisions. Their experiences should help determine what is built, where it is located, and how its effectiveness is measured.
Women and girls with disabilities can face additional barriers to safe evacuation, sanitation, healthcare, protection, and livelihoods. Programs that consider gender and disability separately may fail to reach those facing both forms of exclusion. Their specific needs must inform climate adaptation, not be treated as an afterthought.
For Bangladesh, COP31 offers an opportunity to link disability inclusion with broader negotiations on adaptation, climate finance, and loss and damage. However, international advocacy will carry greater weight if matched by domestic implementation.
The National Adaptation Plan 2023–2050 and the Standing Orders on Disaster 2019 provide frameworks to strengthen inclusion. The next step is to assign clear institutional responsibilities, allocate resources, and publish measurable indicators of progress.
When warnings are inaccessible, evacuation becomes more difficult and dangerous. Shelters that exclude certain users fail to protect the whole community, while gaps in rehabilitation can leave families with prolonged care responsibilities and lost income. Designing for accessibility from the outset helps public investment deliver its intended benefits.
Bangladesh has made considerable progress in cyclone preparedness and community-based disaster management. The next measure of that progress should be whether people with disabilities can participate in and benefit from the systems built to protect them. Resilience means that every member of a community can prepare, reach safety, recover and rebuild with dignity.
At COP31, Bangladesh should argue that accessibility should be at the centre of climate justice. At home, it should demonstrate what that commitment means in practice. A climate-resilient country cannot be built around an imagined average citizen. It must work for everyone.
Shafiq R Bhuiyan writes on how communication, culture and corporate social responsibility (CSR) converge to shape a more conscious and compassionate society.
