Bringing the Climate Emergency into the Mainstream of Social Policy: A Cross-Cutting Review of Major Gaps, Opportunities and Needed Action

This chapter argues that, despite growing global commitments to climate justice and a “Just Transition,” the discipline of social policy (SP) has too often treated climate change as peripheral rather than foundational to welfare, inequality, and rights. It synthesises key intersections between climate change and eleven core SP domains, examines synergies and trade-offs across these domains, and proposes an actionable framework for mainstreaming climate considerations across SP teaching, research, and engagement. Drawing on participatory online workshops (Zoom) held in late 2021 with academics, practitioners, and policymakers, supported by rapid literature reviews and a structured idea-sorting exercise, the chapter maps where climate impacts and climate policies interact with domains such as housing, income maintenance, fuel and food poverty, health and social care, education, and migration. The analysis highlights how climate pressures cascade across resources, labour markets, and public services, disproportionately affecting already marginalised groups, and identifies major knowledge gaps—especially around compounded vulnerabilities and the distributional effects of mitigation and adaptation. The chapter concludes by calling for a cross-sectoral, people-centred SP agenda that embeds climate adaptation and equity into the core of welfare-state thinking and practice.