Theoretical analysis shows climate change threatens workers’ health and decent work in Brazil, highlighting urgent needs.
This essay explores the theoretical and conceptual nexus between climate change, workers’ health, decent work, human rights, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) using the case of agricultural workers in Brazil. It posits the overall relationships between climate change risks and working conditions, relevant international legal standards and norms on worker rights, and the features of worker conditions in Brazilian agriculture. It offers a compelling research agenda with five operational pillars: (1) research, (2) surveillance and monitoring, (3) risk assessment, (4) risk management, and (5) policies and regulations. The holistic framework it develops avoids monocausal explanations, incomplete solutions, fragmented interventions, and unintended consequences, which impact the livelihoods and health of Brazilian agricultural workers. The essay concludes by highlighting that through research using a human rights perspective, Brazil can protect workers’ health in the face of climate change.
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Rodríguez-Huerta et al. (2025) studied this question.
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