Social Protection and Jobs for Climate Change Challenges: Current Practice and Future Opportunities

This paper reviews the current and potential roles of social protection and jobs (SPJ) policies and mechanisms in supporting address the challenges related to climate change. Given its central role in reducing poverty and vulnerability and in helping people cope with various shocks, SPJ can play a greater instrumental role in both adaptation and mitigation efforts, managing the impacts of climate change as well as the impacts of decarbonization. However, at present, its potential remains underrecognized and SPJ policies and programming seldom integrate climate consideration in a deliberate and strategic manner. To realize this untapped opportunity, this note aims to concisely present SPJ’s role in the climate agenda. It first presents an overview of the potential ways in which SPJ policies and programs can strategically support climate goals, while explaining key issues and concepts. It then reviews existing evidence for and examples of current practice on SPJ and climate change and highlights policy and operational considerations, including key takeaways that SPJ practitioners can use to drive the climate and SPJ agenda forward.