How persons with disabilities are part of the climate solution
If Shiela May Aggarao were to describe COP28 in one word, it would be “intense.”
From being chosen among 100 International Youth Climate Delegates out of 11,000 global applicants, attending capacity-building sessions before the 2023 UN Climate Conference (also known as COP28), and participating in the two-week conference in Dubai, Shiela’s experience felt nothing short of the word.
“We are so tired of being called and treated as vulnerable,” Shiela shares to Young STAR. While this sentiment is laced with a hint of exasperation, the steadfastness in her voice embodies a fiery perseverance that is undoubtedly promising. “We are part of the solution,” she proclaims. “We can be part of the solution.”
I thought, maybe I had the chance to get in,” Shiela says.
Being visually impaired since 2005 and raised in Valenzuela City where her home was “like a catch-basin” for flooding, Shiela is no stranger to extreme weather events caused by the climate crisis and its impact on persons with disabilities.
Shiela, a millennial feminist who loves playing board games with friends and proudly identifies as a Ravenclaw, is deeply involved in organizations that champion her advocacies. She is an active member of the Inclusive Generation Equality Collective, as well as two Philippine organizations of persons with disabilities: the Nationwide Organization of Visually-Impaired Empowered Ladies (NOVEL) and Life Haven Center for Independent Living.
“Climate action is just one of the things that I do because gender and disability are cross-cutting,” Shiela shares. While she doesn’t claim to be a specialist on the technicalities of climate change, she is an expert on gender equality and disability inclusion, having joined and co-facilitated disaster risk-reduction training and community-based inclusive development programs.
So when her colleague Dr. Jun Bernardino from Life Haven CIL linked her to an application to the International Youth Climate Delegate Program (IYCDP), the first COP28 program of its kind that embedded 100 youth participants within the global climate policy negotiation process, she had to seize the opportunity.
Citing a 2023 report by the Disability Inclusive Climate Action Research Program at McGill University and the International Disability Alliance (IDA), Shiela recounts how there are only 39 out of 195 signatories of the Paris Agreement—not even a quarter—that included persons with disabilities in their National Determined Contributions (NDCs), or the plans that state a country’s adaptation and mitigation measures for the climate crisis.
“I took the chance because disability is an angle that isn’t often discussed in COP. I thought, maybe I had the chance to get in.”
After the deliberation process, Shiela was accepted at the age of 32. Out of the 100 chosen delegates, only five are persons with disabilities. “While there needs to be more representation, it’s a good start,” Shiela shares, considering that IYCDP is in its infancy. Shiela was the only delegate from this pool with a visual impairment.
Filipina COP28 youth delegate Shiela May Aggarao says a climate-resilient world is not possible if there's one sector of people left out.
Led by Youth Climate Champion, Her Excellency Shamma Al Mazrui, and in collaboration with YOUNGO, the UNFCCC’s Official Children and Youth Constituency, the IYCDP entails a demanding and rigorous experience for its delegates.
Months leading up to COP28, the program held capacity-building sessions that covered topics like negotiation streams (adaptation, mitigation, global stocktake, and loss and damage) and the UNFCCC constituencies. Harvard Kennedy School conducted training sessions on Negotiations, Conflict Management, and Interest-Based Negotiations, wherein youth delegates were taught different negotiation styles that would be beneficial during COP28.
Apart from being intellectually demanding, the event itself was physically taxing. “It was really hard to move around. While there were buggy carts available, one needed to walk a couple of blocks to reach the station,” Shiela recalls, mentioning how the city’s heat and the vastness of Expo City Dubai made it challenging to navigate the area.
Spanning two weeks from Nov. 30 to Dec. 13, COP28 featured numerous negotiating sessions and thousands of events. While Shiela initially felt overwhelmed and started second-guessing her impact during the first few days—a sentiment that several co-delegates also felt—she persisted and focused on what was at hand.
While disability inclusion was her overarching advocacy, Shiela concentrated on climate finance, gender, and education as her main areas of interest. “Primarily, I was engaged in the youth program and youth constituency as a person with a disability. Secondly, I was engaged in the Disability Caucus. Thirdly, I interacted with Philippine CSOs and the Philippine delegation, attending daily meetings and participating in discussions.”
Challenges presented themselves in Shiela’s COP28 journey. This included the need for more substantial efforts and concrete plans in disability inclusion, as well as holistically integrating persons with disabilities within the community and not being treated as a group that operates separately.
Before the event, Shiela also attended meetings with COP28’s accessibility consultant and had bilateral meetings with Harvard to ensure accessibility for persons with disabilities. In addition, she had to lobby for full funding for her personal assistant’s presence during the event. Although these opportunities were helpful, they entailed considerable time and effort, proving how the playing field is still not equal for all.
Shifting focus, Shiela enumerates a handful of triumphs. “One of the wins of COP28 was institutionalizing the Youth Climate Champion because it opens up more participation from the youth.” She also expresses joy at an outcome made possible by the youth’s involvement: “I’m so happy that persons with disabilities were mentioned in the COP28 Global Youth Statement, which includes the demands of the youth when it comes to climate change and climate action.”
Moreover, Shiela and her co-delegates sought to incorporate a disability inclusion session that wasn’t initially planned in the program. This session allowed persons with disabilities to share how climate change affects them and how they can be part of the solution.
“The stories of the household and the community should be the center of any COP and any climate action,” she emphasizes, citing her research with Life Haven CIL in Laoang, Northern Samar. This study revealed that persons with disabilities are not included in the municipality’s extensive climate action plan, with poverty emerging as a significant barrier that hinders their adaptation to climate change.
“Disabilities are not the problem,” Shiela points out. “It’s the social and environmental barriers that restrict persons with disabilities on their participation and personal development in the community.”
Moving past COP28, Shiela’s plea to the Philippine government is to comprehensively review the National Climate Action Plan for 2011 to 2028 and to justly incorporate persons with disabilities in all its stages. Her next agenda also involves sharing her research findings, participating in more projects, engaging with CSOs, and promoting the capacity building of women with disabilities in climate action.
While COP28 brought forth prospects and hurdles, what’s certain is that there remains a collective appeal for a future COP—and society— that is more equitable and inclusive.
Shiela, the first and only IYCDP youth delegate in COP28 hailing from the Philippines, eloquently punctuates the point: “A climate-resilient world is not possible if there’s one sector or group of people that is left out.”