Right now, England is experiencing one of the most intense heatwaves on record. The Met Office has issued its highest-level Red Extreme Heat Warning, with temperatures in southern England forecast to reach 38°C, a figure that could break the June record held since 1976. Humidity levels are being described by forecasters as "oppressive," with overnight temperatures offering almost no relief.
For many disabled people, heatwaves are a threat to life, dignity and safety. And the main reason for that is not their health condition, impairment or neurodivergence. It's a government failure to make buildings where disabled people live, work and receive medical care safe in a warming climate.
Dangerously overheating: Care homes, NHS hospitals, community venues
Across England right now, care homes have no legal requirement to provide mechanical cooling. NHS buildings, many of them ageing, poorly ventilated, and designed for a cooler climate are struggling to keep temperatures safe for patients and staff.
The National Adaptation Programme — the government's framework for preparing the country for climate change — doesn’t include robust, enforceable standards to ensure these places are adequately cooled. The targets are vague, the accountability is weak, and the voices of disabled people have been largely absent from the planning process altogether.
That's why Friends of the Earth is working with communities on the frontline of extreme weather to take the government to the European Court of Human Rights over its inadequate National Adaptation Plan regarding extreme weather protection.
Meet Doug: fighting for disability justice, not charity
Doug Paulley is a disability rights campaigner in his forties. He is a care home resident. He won a landmark UK Supreme Court case securing wheelchair users' right to bus spaces. He is also a co-claimant in Friends of the Earth’s legal challenge before the European Court of Human Rights, seeking to strengthen the government’s climate adaptation plans, including to better protect disabled people.
Doug's motivation is rooted in decades of fighting for justice. In his own words:
Disabled people are among the minorities considered most expendable in any catastrophe or emergency. And climate change is an emergency. This is an existential crisis for humanity, but particularly for the most dispossessed and under-resourced groups — and that includes disabled people.
Doug Paulley, Co-claimant, Friends of the Earth European Court of Human Rights challenge | Disability rights campaigner
'Nothing about us without us' is a slogan that was popularised by the disability rights Movement and is now used widely in intersectional struggles for oppressed peoples. Which speaks to why it is important to co-produce adaptation plans with disabled people, not to make provision for a group seen as passive recipients of care, but to recognise disabled people as rights-holders who are being actively failed by a system that has excluded them from decision-making.
Let's be clear about what we mean — and what we don't
Much of the media coverage this week will describe disabled people, older people and people with health conditions as "vulnerable." We think that framing is wrong, and here's why it matters. Friends of the Earth uses the social model of disability, developed by the UK Disabled People's Rights Movement.
It draws a crucial distinction between impairment (which is a person’s health condition, medical diagnosis and/or neurodivergence) and disability (the social barriers that exclude people and create risk). Disability is created by inaccessible buildings, underfunded services, and policies made without disabled people at the table.
A care home resident isn't solely at risk this week because they have certain health conditions that predispose them to the impacts of extreme heat. They are at risk because the building they live in has no cooling. And community ‘cool spaces’ can lack vital accessibility features such as ‘Changing Places toilets'. They are at risk because the government's adaptation programme was not built with them in mind.
The barriers driving risk right now
- Physical: care homes, NHS hospitals and community venues with no mechanical cooling or adequate ventilation
- Systemic: no enforceable legal standard requiring care homes to maintain comfortable temperatures during extreme heatwaves.
- Policy: National Adaptation Programme with weak targets and no meaningful co-production with disabled people.
- Attidude: a cultural and political tendency to frame disabled people as individual burdens or superheros rather than as rights-holders and knowledgeable leaders.
Our legal challenge: holding the government to account
Friends of the Earth, alongside co-claimants including Doug Paulley and Kevin Jordan, have brought a case to the European Court of Human Rights arguing that the UK government's National Adaptation Programme fails to meet its obligations including to disabled people under human rights law.
The case is not asking for charity. It is demanding that the government do its job: that it produce robust, rights-based climate adaptation plans, developed with disabled people, that ensure their rights and safety in a warming world.
Below is a short table we use within Friends of the Earth when considering how we frame risks to disabled people during heatwaves. We have included that here, as you may find it useful to reflect on.
Further reading
- Article: Disability in the Heat – Disability Debrief
- Article: Disabled People Cannot be 'Expected Losses' in the Climate Crisis – Truth Out
- Short film: Cripping Climate Adaptation: Disability Justice and Climate Change – Karina Cardona
- Article: Are heatwaves harmful to mental health? – The Guardian
- Resources: Climate change and disability – Disability Debrief
- Short Film: The Right to Be Rescued – Rooted in Rights*
- Guide: Crip Up Climate Conversations – Sensing Climate
- Network: Young Friends of the Earth Disability Justice Network
- Article: Disability, care and climate – Julie's Bicycle
- Factsheet: The Social Model of Disability – Inclusion London
- Press release: Nearly 10,000 care homes in heatwave hot spots – Friends of the Earth
- Article with interactive map: Do you live in an extreme heat hotspot? – Friends of the Earth
- Article: UK climate adaptation case goes to European Court of Human Rights – Friends of the Earth
- Short Film: Why are people with disabilities left out of disaster planning? – Al Jazeera*
- Article: Eco Ableism and the Climate Movement – Friends of the Earth Scotland
- Article: This is an existential crisis for disabled people, says campaigner after climate change court win – Disability News Service
- Article: Climate adaptation is failing Disabled people – and it’s no accident – IPR blog
*These films use the term “people with disabilities”, reflecting the history of the US disability rights movement. They are included as they provide primers on the intersection of climate adaptation and disability, and examples of framing the impacts of extreme weather as structural issues for disabled people.