How We Can Build a Pathway Between Climate Change and Social Justice to Reducing Vulnerability
Climate change is no longer just an environmental issue; it is a multidimensional human rights crisis intrinsically linked to deepening inequalities, poverty, and social exclusion. Impacts like droughts, floods, and extreme weather events place a disproportionate burden on the most vulnerable segments of our societies. This article aims to examine the social justice dimension of climate change and discuss solutions within the framework of the “Leave No One Behind” principle, a cornerstone of the UN Sustainable Development Goals Report (2024).
Climate change exacerbates existing social inequalities, loading the crisis onto the shoulders of those least responsible. This reality is starkly evident in several key areas. First, as highlighted in the Report (UN, 2024), 84% of the world’s 1.1 billion poor live in rural areas, and their livelihoods depend on climate-sensitive sectors like agriculture and fishing. A single disaster, like the 2022 floods in Pakistan, which affected 33 million people and caused $10 billion in damages, can mean generational devastation for poor households (UNHCR, 2024).
The impact is also profoundly gendered. Women, who make up 70% of the world's poor (UNDP, 2023-2024), are more dependent on natural resources for their livelihoods. They constitute 80% of those displaced by climate change, and during emergencies (e.g., 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, catastrophic 2022 floods in Pakistan, 2024 floods in southern Brazil), female mortality rates were significantly higher than male (UNDESA, 2024). The 2022 Pakistan floods, which displaced over 8 million people and devastated the agricultural sector where women form over 70% of the workforce, left an estimated 650,000 pregnant women acutely vulnerable due to a lack of clean water, food, and healthcare (UNHCR, 2024). Similarly, the 2023-2024 Horn of Africa drought, which left over 40 million people facing severe food insecurity, disproportionately impacted women and girls, who bear the traditional responsibility of searching for water and food (WHO, 2023).
While today's climate disasters disproportionately affect the most vulnerable, it is projected that future generations will face these impacts on a much wider scale. A person born in 2020 is 2 to 7 times more likely to experience extreme weather events in their lifetime than someone born in the 1960s (UNDP, 2023-2024), which has profound impacts on access to education, health, and psychological development. Finally, the crisis spares no vulnerable group, as difficulties in accessing early warning systems and the physical environment disproportionately endangers persons with disabilities during disasters (UNDESA, 2024). Ultimately, these converging statistics reveal that the climate crisis is not just an environmental issue, but a profound social justice crisis that systematically targets the most vulnerable members of our global society.
The Key to Social Justice: Social Development and Protection
Achieving climate justice requires placing social development policies at the heart of climate action, a concept long emphasized in reports like the World Bank's Social Dimensions of Climate Change (Mearns & Norton, 2010). As underlined by the UN Copenhagen Declaration on Social Development (1995), the core goals are:
Eradication of poverty
Creation of employment
Promotion of social inclusion
In the context of climate change adaptation, these goals can be realized through concrete steps, aligning with national frameworks like Türkiye’s Climate Change Adaptation Strategy and Action Plan (2024-2030) and its overarching Net Zero Emission Target for 2053 (2024). For example; one of them is social protection nets. Cash transfers, social assistance, and insurance systems act as a lifeline for vulnerable households against climate shocks. Another is to create green and resilient livelihoods such as creating climate-smart agriculture training for women farmers in rural areas (e.g. the “Women Farmers” project in Turkey) or green job opportunities (e.g. Bogotá's electric bus fleet). The last one is inclusive and participatory planning for all. Examples include initiatives like Quezon City's (Philippines) “Local Climate Action Plan for Children” (UNISEF, 2023) or Berlin’s “Living Together in the Neighbourhood” project (Anonymous, 2021), which involve all stakeholders (women, youth, persons with disabilities, the elderly) in the planning process.
A Guiding Light: Global Social Development Indicators
Measuring sustainable development requires looking beyond mere economic growth. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has developed a set of critical indicators to monitor human well-being and inequalities more comprehensively, as detailed in the Human Development Report (2023-2024). From a climate justice perspective, these indicators are indispensable roadmaps for policymakers:
Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI): Measures poverty not only by income but across 10 different indicators in health, education, and living standards (nutrition, child mortality, electricity, clean water, etc.). Understanding which dimensions are hit by climate shocks in which households is crucial for targeting aid effectively (UNDP, 2023-2024).
Human Development Index (HDI): Evaluates a long and healthy life, access to knowledge, and a decent standard of living together. Given that climate change threatens all three of these fundamental dimensions, safeguarding and improving HDI should be an ultimate goal of climate action (UNDP, 2023-2024).
Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI): A crucial metric that modifies the standard HDI to account for inequality in a society’s health, education, and income. It serves as a critical barometer for assessing whether climate policies are exacerbating social inequalities (UNDP, 2023-2024).
Gender Inequality Index (GII): Measures women’s reproductive health, political empowerment, and economic status. The GII is a fundamental reference for understanding how climate change deepens gender inequality and for designing gender-sensitive adaptation projects (UNDP, 2023-2024).
These indicators show that the success of the fight against climate change must be measured not only by the reduction of carbon emissions but also by the extent to which it enhances human dignity, equality, and well-being.
An Integrated Approach for a Just Future
The battle against climate change cannot be won by technical solutions alone (renewable energy, energy efficiency). It requires integrated policies that establish social justice, reduce poverty, empower vulnerable groups, and place “People” at the center, as argued in foundational texts like the World Bank's Social Dimensions of Climate Change (Mearns & Norton, 2010). As stated in the preamble of the Paris Agreement, all parties must respect, promote and consider their respective obligations to human rights, the right to health, the rights of indigenous peoples, local communities, migrants, children, persons with disabilities and people in vulnerable situations and the right to development, as well as gender equality, empowerment of women and intergenerational equity. Climate justice can only be achieved by protecting and empowering the most vulnerable. This is not only a moral imperative but also the surest path to building a more resilient and sustainable society. Ultimately, the climate crisis transcends environmental degradation, revealing itself as a deep social inequity issue.
References:
Anonymous, Berlin Senate Department for Urban Development and Housing, 2021.
Robin Mearns and Andrew Norton, World Bank, Social Dimensons of Climate Change, 2010.
Turkish Republic, Climate Change Adaptation Strategy And Action Plan (2024-2030)
Turkiye’s Net Zero Emission Target for 2053, 2024.
UN, The Sustainable Development Goals Report, 2024.
UNDESA, World Social Report 2024.
UNDP, Human Development Report 2023-2024.
UNHCR, Brazil Floods Emergency Six-Month Impact Report, 2024.
UNICEF Philippines, 2023.
WHO, Greater Horn of Africa, 2023.
Written by Dr. Zeynep Eren
I am Prof. Dr. Zeynep Eren from Ataturk University in Erzurum. As the university’s Climate Change Coordinator, I also served as the Social Development Expert in the “CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION STRATEGY AND ACTION PLAN (2024-2030)”. My journey in this field includes managing numerous climate-related projects; notably, in 2014, I prepared one of the first carbon footprint studies for Erzurum city in our country. For nearly a decade, I have been teaching a postgraduate course on "Climate Change and Its Impacts," and I actively contribute to various university-wide elective and faculty courses that address climate change components. Currently, I am working as a visiting researcher here, at the University of Oxford, where I am leading a significant project in a critical area of climate change mitigation: developing next-generation hydrogen production using advanced technology for carbon capture and CO₂ reduction.