Can Social Protection Tackle Risks Emerging from Climate Change, and How? a Framework and a Critical Review

Abstract

Climate change is transforming the risks individuals and households face, with potentially pro-
found socioeconomic consequences such as increased poverty, inequality, and social instability.
Social protection is a policy tool that governments use to help individuals and households manage
risks linked to income and livelihoods, and to achieve societal outcomes such as reducing poverty
and inequality. Despite its potential as a policy response to climate change, the integration of
social protection within the climate policy agenda is currently limited. While the concept of risk is
key to both sectors, different understandings of the nature and scope of climate change impacts
and their implications, as well as of the adequacy of social protection instruments to address
them, contribute to the lack of policy and practice integration.
Our goal is to bridge this cognitive gap by highlighting the potential of social protection as a
policy response to climate change. Using a comprehensive climate risk lens, we first explore how
climate change drives risks that are within the realm of social protection, and their implications,
including likely future trends in demand for social protection. Based on this analysis, we critically
review existing arguments for what social protection can do and evidence of what it currently does
to manage risks arising from climate change. From the analysis, a set of reconceptualised roles
emerge for social protection to strategically contribute to climate-resilient development.

Keywords: social protection, social policy, climate risk framework, climate change responses, climate-resilient development