Protection sociale et changement climatique SOCIAL PROTECTION AND CLIMATE CHANGE 1. BACKGROUND Around the globe, the effects of climate change are affecting people’s lives. Higher temperatures, droughts, flooding, sea level rise and other extreme weather events pose significant challenges to individual livelihoods and national economies. Whether recurrent or isolated, the need to protect people from the effects of climate-change is of primary concern for many policymakers, as is tackling its root causes. Adaptation to climate change, in particular measures to mitigate greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, can create new “green” sectors of the economy. But those whose livelihoods are tied to less environmentally-friendly industries will require assistance as countries make the difficult but necessary decisions to phase out these industries. Measures to re-skill workers and protect those who lose their jobs will be necessary to ensure an effective and just transition to more sustainable production and consumption habits. Meanwhile, social protection is being increasingly regarded as a powerful tool to protect those populations at greater risk of climate-related disasters, as well as hardship due to the progressive and lasting effects of climate change. Ensuring that these groups are given access to adequate social protection is important to offset losses in income or assets that threaten livelihoods and economic activity. Further still, everyday efforts to secure livelihoods can also serve as opportunities to promote more sustainable production and consumption methods and to roll-back the effects of climate change and environmental degradation. Some newer social protection measures seek to link social protection and GHG reduction efforts by providing the incentives and means for greater environmental stewardship. In light of these developments and of this year’s 21st session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 21) to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 11th session of the Meeting of the Parties (CMP 11) to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, a series of case studies is proposed to document the link between climate change and social protection based on the dual aims of protecting people from adverse environmental effects and protecting the environment from the increasing pressures of human activity. 2. MAPPING CONCEPTS The criteria used for selecting case studies uses four principle objectives (A – D) under two broader categories (I – II). This type of organization allows for further exploration of the important intersection between efforts to protect livelihoods and environment by identifying initiatives that achieve more than one of the objectives described (A – D). I. Livelihood protection and restoration: This category includes initiatives designed to mitigate the adverse effects on people of climate change or of the adverse effects of efforts on people to facilitate the transition to more sustainable production and consumption methods. A. Livelihoods threatened or lost or as a result of a degraded environment or more volatile climate are protected or replaced. This objective includes protection for population segments whose livelihoods are at risk from a rapid reduction or persistent degradation of environmental resources directly as a result of GHG or indirectly as a result of new weather patterns brought about by climate change. In both cases, social protection programs may be useful in offsetting associated losses, recurrent or one-off. Regarding disasters specifically, there may be longstanding programs designed in such a way as to be sufficiently scalable and flexible to provide meaningful protection in their wake. B. Livelihoods threatened or lost as a result of mitigation efforts are protected or replaced. The transition to more sustainable production and consumption methods will create new economic and employment opportunities for many. However, others working in heavily-polluting or carbon-intensive indus