Welfare states under the weather: A research agenda on climate change and social protection against environmental risks

What does it mean for states to protect populations against climate change? As environmental risks are becoming more frequent and severe, the ability of states to maintain the wellbeing of their populations is challenged. Yet, despite growing debates about social-ecological risks and policies, the question of how to protect societies from the social consequences of environmental risks and disasters remains little addressed in social policy and welfare state studies and a critical gap in the literature. This article advances a research agenda for conceptualising social protection against environmental risks. We identify avenues for research for understanding the various forms of socialisation of environmental risks and the policies that protect populations against their impacts across Europe and North America. We analyse these policies from a conceptual, historical, and comparative perspective, looking at how they provide forms of welfare, how they interact with social policies, and how climate change transforms welfare states’ role in protecting populations against environmental risks in the context of just adaptation.