In one Kenyan county, a local campaign found that one in four persons with albinism reached had skin cancer. As 31st Conference of the Parties (COP31) opens in Antalya on 9 November, persons with albinism and other persons with disabilities are asking a simple question: will the world’s climate negotiations finally make room for us?
Sixty-four. That is how many persons with albinism Ana Antami’s team met during a door to door outreach campaign in Kakamega County, western Kenya, aimed at raising awareness about sun protection and the risks of skin cancer.
Sixteen of them had serious sunburn or sun damage. The team referred them a dermatologist at Kakamega County General Hospital, with the support of Kenya’s National Council for Persons with Disabilities. All 16 were found to have some form of skin cancer. Eight have since died.
Kakamega was once known for its mild climate, cooled by the nearby rainforest. Today, temperatures are rising. Most persons with albinism in the area earn a living by farming or herding livestock, spending long hours in the sun. Sunscreen supplied by the government is limited and difficult to access. Skin cancer is preventable and, when found early, treatable. Yet here it is taking lives.
These figures come from a single campaign in one of Kenya’s 47 counties. Yet persons with albinism across Africa face the same conditions: prolonged exposure to the sun through outdoor work, rising exposure to harmful ultraviolet radiation driven by climate change, and limited access to sunscreen, skin screening and treatment. That suggests the true toll is far higher than current records suggest. Climate change is intensifying an already serious health risk, but because climate data is rarely collected or disaggregated to include persons with albinism or other persons with disabilities, these deaths stay invisible in the policies and adaptation plans designed to protect people.
This was the story that opened a continental conversation hosted by the Africa Albinism Network (AAN) on 29 October 2026, eleven days before COP31.
Centre disability, centre albinism
The webinar, Road to COP31: Centre Disability, Centre Albinism, brought together more than 70 participants from across Africa and beyond, with support from the Global Greengrants Fund.
Bonface Massah, AAN’s Executive Director, set the tone in his opening remarks. “This is not simply a question of vulnerability of persons with disabilities,” he said. “It’s about understanding how their rights have been excluded.” He emphasised that the heat and ultraviolet exposure facing persons with albinism to their rights to life, health and an adequate standard of living, and asked governments, funders and the private sector what role they will play.
What we heard
Solutions grow in the shade
Sherleen Tunai, founder of Ana Antami, did not stop at the figures. Her team asked a practical question: if sunscreen and protective clothing are not enough for people who work outdoors, what work can they do out of the sun?
The answer was mushrooms. They grow in shade, are already sold in Kenya and are already part of local diets. Eleven persons with albinism and nine parents of children with albinism were trained and now grow mushrooms at home. A second group from Bungoma and Kakamega counties brings the total to 40, and they are forming a cooperative to sell together.
The project protects health, brings in income and food, and does something less visible too. When persons with albinism sell their produce at the market, neighbours see them as producers and business people, and that challenges stigma.
Inclusion needs more than a mention
Anthony Kimathi Ngari, Humanitarian Coordinator with CBM Global Disability Inclusion in Kenya, warned against policies that name disability and stop there. Real inclusion, he said, needs commitments, budgets, implementation plans, accountability, targets and indicators, and a clear role for organisations of persons with disabilities beyond bringing people to meetings.
He asked organisations to look honestly at who is missing from their own structures, to build their knowledge of climate issues, and to form alliances in place of competing for small pots of funding. He also urged them to write down what works. “Don’t take this as small stories,” he said of community projects like the one in Kakamega. “These are the big stories that actually can create impact.”
Funders must open the door
Catherine Hyde Townsend from the Ford Foundation described how disability-led organisations are shut out of climate funding. Many climate donors have simply never considered them as grantees. Requirements for a track record and a minimum budget exclude organisations that have never been funded, and donor consultations tend to reach only existing grantees.
Her advice to organisations was to state accessibility costs openly in every budget. “It may not cost much, but it does cost something,” she said, “and things that are important have a value to them.” Asked what a small organisation of persons with albinism should do when a funder resists those costs, she was direct: excluding them contributes to discrimination, and the message lands best when other donors say it.
Africa’s climate structures have room for us
Shitaye Astawes, Director of Advocacy and Communication at the African Disability Forum, reminded participants that the law is already on their side. Article 11 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Article 12 of the African Disability Protocol (ADP) require states to protect persons with disabilities in situations of risk, including natural disasters.
She walked through Africa’s layers of climate governance: the African Union’s Climate Change and Resilient Development Strategy and Action Plan (2022–2032), regional economic communities such as Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the East African Community (EAC), national governments, and the African Group of Negotiators, which speaks for Africa in the UN talks. None of these has yet made disability inclusion real, she said, but each is a door that organisations of persons with disabilities can knock on.
Know where the decisions are made
Muhammed Lamin Saidykhan from the Climate Action Network International gave participants a map of COP31. The negotiations to watch include the new just transition mechanism agreed at COP30, the Loss and Damage Fund, the call to triple adaptation finance by 2035, public climate finance under Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, and access to electricity for the hundreds of millions of Africans who still live without it.
His advice was to work through the African Group of Negotiators and the G77, use the working groups of Climate Action Network (CAN), and claim space at side events and civil society venues. He offered to help connect organisations of persons with disabilities to all of these. He closed with a line worth repeating: “There is no climate justice without human rights.”
A seat at the table, by right
Josephine Mwatibo, co-focal point of the Disability Climate Caucus to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), brought the conversation to the decision that COP31 could make. For years, persons with disabilities took part in the climate talks informally. In February 2026, the UNFCCC formally recognised the Disability Climate Caucus, which now brings together more than 120 organisations.
The next step is recognition as a formal constituency, alongside groups such as women and gender, youth and Indigenous Peoples. That would give persons with disabilities a defined place in negotiations and continuity from one COP to the next. The caucus has a legal opinion arguing that, under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), this is an obligation of states. “This is not an informal ask,” she said. “This is a legal obligation.”
There is momentum. At the Bonn climate talks in June 2026, Kenya, Guatemala and the African Group called for the first time for a disability constituency.
Five asks for COP31 and beyond
From these conversations, AAN has drawn a common message for participants and partners to carry into COP31: centre disability, centre albinism. There is no climate justice without the rights of persons with disabilities. Behind it sit five asks to governments, the African Group of Negotiators, funders and climate organisations.
- Recognise the Disability Caucus as a formal UNFCCC constituency. States that have ratified the CRPD are obliged to ensure that persons with disabilities take part in decisions that affect them, and climate decisions are no exception.
- Put persons with disabilities, including persons with albinism, into climate plans and finance. Nationally Determined Contributions, National Adaptation Plans, loss and damage requests and the just transition mechanism need targets, budgets, indicators and data disaggregated by disability.
- Treat sun protection as climate adaptation. Sunscreen, protective clothing, and skin cancer screening and treatment for persons with albinism belong in heat and health adaptation plans and in national essential medicines lists. National action plans on albinism should address climate change.
- Make climate information and early warnings accessible to everyone, in formats that deaf persons, blind persons and other persons with disabilities can use.
- Fund organisations of persons with disabilities directly, and treat accessibility and reasonable accommodation as standard costs in every climate programme and event.
The legal ground for these asks is already in place: the CRPD, the ADP, the human rights language in the Paris Agreement’s preamble, and the African Union’s commitment to a people-centred climate strategy. What is missing is implementation. Nothing about us without us applies to climate action too.
What you can do before, during and after COP31
The Disability Caucus cannot win constituency status on its own. Governments decide, so the work starts at home.
Before 9 November
- Send the AAN advocacy brief to your country’s UNFCCC national focal point and ministry responsible for climate change, and ask whether your delegation will support a disability constituency.
- Join the Disability Caucus to receive updates and add evidence from your country.
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Prepare one or two examples from your own community, including figures where available. Please remove names and identifying details unless those involved have given their consent. Share your examples with AAN at info@africaalbinismnetwork.org.
In Antalya
- Attend the Disability Caucus’s daily coordination meetings. Details will be displayed at the venue.
- Raise disability and albinism in every room you enter: negotiations, side events, pavilions and civil society spaces.
- Meet your national delegation and members of the African Group of Negotiators with the five asks above.
- Ask organisers of every event about accessibility, and report barriers to the caucus.
After COP31
- Follow up with your focal point and with governments that supported the constituency, and keep the contact going towards COP32.
- Track what was agreed on the constituency, adaptation, the just transition mechanism and finance, and share it with your networks.
- Invite government officials and climate actors into your own national dialogues, so they hear directly from persons with albinism and persons with disabilities.
The road from Kakamega to Antalya
The 64 persons with albinism in Kakamega will not be in the negotiating rooms in Antalya. Eight of them are no longer here. The persons with albinism and persons with disabilities who do travel to COP31 carry their stories, and the stories of many more across Africa whose experience is not yet counted.
COP31 can change that by giving persons with disabilities a permanent, recognised place in the climate talks. Governments that have ratified the CRPD have the power, and the obligation, to make it happen. The question for every delegation in Antalya is whether it will.
Centre disability. Centre albinism.
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AAN advocacy message and brief for COP31
Webinar recording:
Portuguese
Register for the Disability Caucus to the UNFCCC
Thank you
AAN thanks all speakers and participants, the interpretation team, and Global Greengrants Fund for supporting this dialogue.
