An interview with Áine Kelly-Costello, an advocate, researcher and story-teller, based in Aotearoa New Zealand, who writes on disability, climate and migration.
Words by Ana Yong
Áine Kelly-Costello (They/Them) is a multifaceted advocate and creative force, deeply committed to climate justice, disability rights, and social change and has made significant contributions in various fields including being a Paralympian for swimming in 2012.
In a thought-provoking article entitled “What I’ve learned in conversation” for Disability Debrief, the importance of involving disabled voices and perspectives in conversations about disability and social justice cannot be ignored. The article reflects on the value of engaging in conversations with disabled people and organizations about environmental and climate justice, highlighting the insights and knowledge that can be gained from these interactions.
Here, we are honored to interview Áine, a trailblazing disabled climate activist who has been making waves in the fight for a more inclusive and sustainable future.
Other Recent Interviews:
- Ori Orisun: Designing a Bio-Inclusive Future with Insects
- Alex Ghenis: Discussing Climate Change and Disability Rights
- Zena Holloway: Bio-designer and Founder of Rootfull
An Interview with Áine Kelly-Costello
1. What initially motivated you to become an advocate for climate justice and disability rights, and how has your motivation evolved over time?
In 2013, one of the co-founders of 350.org, Bill Mckibben was doing a speaking tour, Do the Math (for anyone who might remember that). It was about how burning the coal, oil and gas that has already been dug up, would cook the planet however many times over. Off the back of that, the following year I was motivated to get involved in a fledgling divestment campaign on my university campus.
A few years later, as I was a little less new to campaigning and was also getting more involved in pan-disability community, with the encouragement of 350 Aotearoa, I started exploring by running some volunteer trainings and creating a resource – how we might make our campaigning more accessible and inclusive to disabled people.
Part of the imperative for that was understanding the context of privilege that I myself was situated in as someone who had not been directly impacted by climate breakdown, who lived in secure low-risk housing etc., so slowly learning more about the impacts of climate breakdown on disabled people and acting from that place.
2. What communication strategies do you find most effective when discussing disability and climate issues with audiences who may not yet understand the intersections involved?
I think the most fundamental starting place is that human-caused climate breakdown hits much harder for disability community because governments practically never prioritise us, neither in disaster response, nor in the development of policies. So, we need our voices, our leadership, our expertise to be taken seriously.
But depending on who the audience primarily is, I try and tailor the focus. Often, I’d be talking to either people with some climate activism background, or disability background, or journalism background. And taking into account what climate change is looking like where they live too. So, starting where people are at and showing the connections from there. Beyond that, I don’t really know what’s most strategic, comms-wise!
3. What are some of the most significant challenges you’ve faced as a disabled activist in the climate movement, and how have you navigated them?
I’ve been very lucky to mostly have people around me who are endeavouring to learn more about disability and build in accessibility and inclusion into their practices. There have been times where I haven’t felt that though, where it’s felt token: like an add-on rather than a key part.
Conversations/narratives that focus on things we personally can or should do, which use that framing of you should “walk/take more public transport/not buy single-use plastic/etc.” can be particularly alienating. This has been called eco-ableism.
As much as I/we want to do right by the planet ourselves, accessibility factors into our decision-making too, and we shouldn’t be being asked to sacrifice that. So, campaigns focusing on the corporate and political drivers of climate chaos are best – the systems-level stuff. And if there are programmes around things like gardening, tree planning, regenerative agriculture, and thinking about how those can be accessible too.
Another challenge is that, as in any marginalised community, there are “sooo many harms” happening at once, and so many different axes on which you want to try help combat them, but never, ever enough capacity.
I like to stay connected with the broader climate justice activism space here in Aotearoa and sit on the board of 350 Aotearoa now, but in the disability/climate space, have also been working at the city level with Council on emergency management – which is a key disability community priority at the moment, on a case study on disability and climate adaptation in another city here, and on academic papers and journalism internationally.
I don’t just focus on climate justice, either, on other harms happening in our community too and trying to be in solidarity with those more impacted than I am. I don’t say any of that to show off or whatever but to give a sense of why there’s just always that challenge around capacity and where to put our limited attention.
4. Who or what inspires you most in your advocacy work, and how do you stay motivated and resilient in the face of challenges?
In terms of what keeps me grounded – I’m lucky to have many close disabled friends, and good friends in the climate movement too, including a bit of overlap between these spaces. Knowing that I can work together with others or just be in the community together is so helpful. Doing something feels better than doing nothing.
Indigenous activism is also a really useful compass. We’ve had some incredible Māori-led uprisings here throughout history and in recent times while the NZ Government does its best to challenge our country’s founding Treaty Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
5. How can climate policies be designed to be more inclusive of people with disabilities, ensuring their needs and voices are adequately represented?
The obvious answer is to meaningfully involve disabled people and our representative organisations early on and continuously throughout processes. Not just asking government officials doing that, but the actual decision-makers, the members of Parliament, making the commitment to be heard by us, even if that turns out to require much more investment or going back to the drawing board.
But beyond that, because our communities are so often caught in ” fire-fighting” mode, it can be hard to truly envision a different world. We need the time and space to be given funding to do our own learning and exploring as disabled people too.
6. In what ways do you think advancements in technology can help increase accessibility and participation for disabled individuals in climate activism?
Having a variety of options for online connectedness is a game-changer. I would say that the disability and climate journalism I have done is a form of activism in itself, which – sidenote – you can still uphold journalistic integrity but position yourself uncompromisingly within and in solidarity with marginalised communities. My work in that area through Disability Debrief and the Enabling Commons podcast only came about because of the ability to be connected online.
Advancements in auto captioning, especially in English, have gotten to the point where, for those who do easily understand written English, reliance on them is way more possible than it used to be. In a similar vein, AI-generated image descriptions have come an extremely long way over the past couple of years.
But the technology is one tool and we ultimately still need to be guided by making space for disabled people to articulate our access needs – which, often, will still involve humans e.g. sign language interpretations: creating accurate captions, or writing out more contextually rich image descriptions.
7. How can media better represent the experiences and voices of disabled climate activists, and what role do you see media playing in shaping public perception?
In my experience at least, in journalism training and resources, we hear a lot about accuracy and facts. That’s important but so is their less talked-about cousin, framing. As a disabled person, you get a lot of information about the perception of disability from those with the most influence over any given story via how it’s framed.
For instance, capitalising on disabled people as headline disaster victims with no further depth to the story – without giving support to disabled people – might be well-intended but might also be seen as pity. It isn’t too far away from the unexamined idea that the loss of certain lives in disasters is inevitable, when actually we could and should design our systems, policies and practices to prioritise all of our people – our disabled people, our children, and our elders. My article “Connecting disability to the climate beat” published by Unbiased The News talks more about journalism at the disability and climate nexus.
8. What message or call to action would you like to share with our readers to encourage them to engage with both climate justice and disability rights in their own communities?
Start small, start where you are.
Familiarising yourself with the struggles of disabled communities is a good start – read, listen, watch: there’s so much information out there. I put together this resource guide on disability and climate which might be helpful.
Are you friends with any disabled people? Be a good friend, start to get to know what takes priority for the disabled people you love and over time for the wider disability community in your area.
And it might not be climate justice, or it might be some facet of that under a different name e.g. emergency management, accessible transport, but try and show up.
If you’re quite deeply involved in the climate movement already, I think it’s similar with a lot of solidarity work –there is no blueprint but a commitment to ongoing learning and developing relationships with marginalised communities goes a very long way.
Consider how you can do these two things:
- Make your campaigning more welcoming/accessible/inclusive for disabled people, and
- Make disability intersections visible within your work.
9. Looking ahead, what do you envision for the future of climate activism, and how do you see the role of disabled activists evolving within this space?
Decarbonising our energy systems is a massive struggle that’ll continue to have significant transnational and (de)colonial justice implications. And I guess climate activism will need to become ever more enmeshed in the geopolitical conflicts and struggles that co-occur with, and fuel, climate chaos.
One observation I would have in the disability space is that I see our communities putting most of our effort into disaster risk reduction and, to some extent, adaptation-based planning. Sometimes, it feels like the wider activism space sees that work as less political or less significant than the equally important job of getting us off fossil fuels.
I know everyone’s stretched but as the impacts of climate breakdown bite more and more, we’re going to need more explicit solidarity with those most impacted.
I am not sure what that will look like for myself, beyond the obvious of trying to influence the flow of money towards our communities, and making sure that there’s the partnering and collaboration with disability communities in designing demands or policy platforms.
As to the evolving role of disabled climate activists – I don’t know. I guess there will be more of us because some will be forced into that activism because of the severity of impacts (both sudden and slower onset), but at the same time, under the constant squeeze of capitalism, survival alone takes up such a high proportion of energy.
In 2023, I talked to other disabled climate activists and wrote about the weight of this struggle. There’s so, so much more visibility and articulation at the disability and climate nexus now than a decade ago, at least in many spaces, so I hope visibility will lead to more solidarity and action, to take the load off of us a bit!
In Conclusion
Áine Kelly-Costello’s journey as a disabled climate activist is a powerful testament to the resilience and strength of marginalized voices in the fight for a sustainable future. Their unique perspective bridges the critical gaps between disability rights and climate justice, reminding us that inclusivity is essential in all social movements.
As they continue to advocate for accessibility and equity, Áine inspires others to recognize the intersectionality of these issues. We are grateful for their insights and commitment, and we look forward to witnessing the transformative impact of their work on both the climate and disability rights landscapes.