The Future of Work Podcast

-Hello, and welcome to the ILO's Future of Work podcast.

I'm Zeina Awad.

It's been called the greatest challenge of our times.

Climate change is wreaking havoc around the world,

from storms and floods to desertification and record heat waves.

The impact of the climate crisis is all around us and clear to all.

But who is suffering the most from this crisis,

and conversely,

who's getting the most support to protect themselves

from the impacts of climate change?

The ILO recently published its flagship report on social protection,

The World Social Protection Report 2024 to 2026:

Universal Social Protection for Climate Action and a Just Transition.

The report shows the crucial role that social protection measures

like unemployment benefits,

health care, child benefits, and emergency payments can play

in countering the worst impacts of climate change.

It also showed how central social protection is

to getting workers to support the green transition and to ensuring

that jobs in a low-carbon economy are decent and secure.

Joining me today to talk more about this are Shahrashoub Razavi,

the Director of the Social Protection Department at the ILO,

the department that produced this very important report,

and Kumi Naidoo, Payne Distinguished Lecturer

at the Centre on Democracy Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University

and a longtime human rights and climate justice activist.

Welcome to the show, Shahra and Kumi.

-Thank you. -Thank you.

-Shahra, I'd like to start with you.

Can you tell us a little bit more about the key findings of the report?

What do the findings imply and why do they matter?

-Thank you, Zeina, and it's great to be with you and with Kumi

for this podcast.

What the report shows is how social protection systems

can protect people against the everyday risks that we face,

everyday life cycle risks that we have, whether it's losing a job,

whether it's getting sick, getting old.

All of these risks,

which we have said,

in all previous reports as well,

are the risks that we face from cradle to grave,

many of these are going to become aggravated

in the context of the climate crisis.

All of these are going to increase the risk of sickness,

the need for health care

without financial hardship.

We also know that the kind of changes that our economies and societies have

to go through are going to increase the risk of unemployment

for many workers who will have to shift from different sectors,

from old brown sectors,

if you like, to new more sustainable green sectors.

Now, these shifts don't happen automatically.

People need, for example, unemployment protection.

What we say is that there is some ground for optimism.

We have, for the first time,

social protection that's covering over half of the world's population,

52.4%, to be clear, which is up from 42.8% in 2015.

This is a modest progress.

If we were to proceed at this rate,

it would take 49 years for everyone in the world to have

a minimum coverage of social protection.

We also know

that what these numbers mean is 3.8 billion people today

have no protection whatsoever, whether they fall sick,

whether,

they're losing a job,

whether they're old and cannot work and need some form of income security.

These risks are very real for billions of people.

We also know that we're all not in the same boat.

We are living really worlds apart.

In high-income countries, almost 86% of the population has coverage.

When you look at upper middle-income countries,

it's about 71% and making progress.

But low-income countries,

unfortunately, it's not even 10% of people who get coverage.

We are really living in this world that is highly unequal.

The kind of protection gaps that we're talking about are affecting

billions of people, particularly those who are in the Global South.

The other fact that comes out of the report very strongly is

that countries that are most vulnerable to climate catastrophes,

they're mostly in the tropics, and they're truly ill-prepared.

When we look at the 20 most climate-vulnerable countries,

about 91% of the population lack any form of social protection.

That's about 364 million people.

If you expand that and look

at the 50 most climate-vulnerable countries,

about 75% of the population has no form of social protection.

These coverage gaps are really serious.

We need to address the reasons for this underinvestment,

which I hope we can get into.

-You said something, you mentioned

the injustice and the Global South.

Now, I want to turn to Kumi, because Kumi, you are

an African, long-time human rights and climate activist.

You're from South Africa.

Obviously, Africa has a lot of the countries

that are deeply affected by climate change,

by the climate crisis, but who at the same time have

minimal social protection.

When you first read this ILO report, what was your reaction?

What did you think? -Thank you and greetings

to your listeners.

Firstly,

I would say that I've reviewed many UN reports

over the last decades.

This ILO social protection report

is probably by far the most important

and the most timely report that I have seen.

If each of our governments

and the social partners in labour and in the private sector

can take this report seriously,

we can have a seismic shift in terms of how we actually address

the most vulnerable people who are impacted by climate injustice.

Why I say climate injustice, as Shahra correctly said,

that the people that are paying the first and most brutal price already now,

and those that will continue to pay

a price should we not turn things around fast,

are going to be people living in the most vulnerable countries.

It's important to just remind ourselves when we're talking

about the most vulnerable countries in the Global South,

that 88% of the world's population lives in those countries

that we say are most vulnerable.

We therefore,

I think, and the report inspires us

to reimagine social protection

as the infrastructure of hope in our climate journey.

This means envisioning a world

where social protection

isn't reactive but proactive,

anticipating climate impacts and building resilient communities

from the ground up.

Think,

for example, of universal basic income schemes

tailored for climate-vulnerable regions, providing not just financial security

but the freedom for communities to innovate in depth.

Envisage public works programs that not only provide employment

but also engage people in restoring ecosystems,

building flood defences, or planting urban forests.

An approach which is about empowering individuals and families to participate

in creating their own sustainable futures.

By doing that, we foster communities that are not just surviving but thriving

in harmony with the environment.

For all of those reasons,

this report is one that I hope and pray

that governments will not let sit on a shelf somewhere,

but really take it seriously and make sure that the different recommendations

are actually realized.

-Indeed. In fact, when one looks closely at the report,

one sees that it tackles two areas and makes two key arguments.

The first one is that social protection can soften

the impact of the climate crisis by extending social protection to protect

those who are most vulnerable.

The second one is that social protection can also help to alleviate fears

that some communities may have about the green transition.

One can understand these fears because if you've been working

in a coal mine all your life in South Africa,

for example, and all of a sudden you're told

your job is going to disappear,

you're going to have some fears.

When you hear these two arguments, Kumi, do they make sense to you

and do they resonate?

Have you heard this come out of the communities,

climate-affected communities that you've met with throughout

the course of your career as a climate justice activist?

-Absolutely.

These are justifiable and valid concerns.

That is why this report calls for a just transition.

We, in the climate justice movement, see the people that work

in the fossil fuel industry,

for example, and other polluting industries

as our brothers and sisters.

They should not be punished for a failure of leadership

to guide them to clean, renewable energy systems.

It is important that we understand that just transition must also apply to,

firstly, people in other industries like in agriculture,

which employs more people,

and to ensure that,

for example, if it's older workers who are close to retirement,

they should have retirement benefits secured.

If it's younger workers, they should be invested

with new skills to deploy those skills

in a new renewable energy-driven economic system

and so on.

Also,

it's important that we don't forget the communities that rely

on the existence of a facility like a coal plant because it's so big,

it employs so many people.

It's the woman who sells vegetables outside

a coal plant, for example.

If you shut the coal plant down and you compensate just the workers,

important though that is,

and don't take care of the people who have small businesses

that are completely reliant on that facility,

then we actually fail to ensure that there's a just transition.

The other point that I just wanted to bring in is to link

the language of loss and damage

and the language of social protection

because loss and damage addresses the impacts of climate change

that are not avoided through mitigation or adaptation efforts.

It refers to the harm caused by climate-related events

such as extreme weather events, like sea level rise,

which can lead to significant social, economic,

and environmental losses.

Integrating the concept of just transition and social protection involves ensuring

that vulnerable communities have the necessary support to deal

with these impacts in a fair and just and equitable way.

I believe that taking those two concepts together,

social protection and loss and damage, is a very important thing for us to do.

-If I can just add one more point to what Kumi has just said

in terms of the potential of social protection,

particularly when it comes to the kind of policies that are needed,

the mitigation policies, how to reduce carbon emissions,

we have many international agencies, governments talking about the need

to reduce subsidies,

to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to reduce the kind of subsidies

that are provided on different sources of not very clean energy.

The difficulty of governments sometimes removing

these subsidies, the fossil fuel subsidies,

because of the fear among many sections of the population

about the price increases.

There have been examples of countries where there has been an attempt to reduce

these subsidies,

and then you've had big protests

and they've had to sometimes reverse the policies.

This happened in 2019 in Ecuador, for example.

Here, I think the role of social protection

is absolutely key,

but it's important to have the right sequencing.

I think you need to have the kind of income support measures,

transfers, cash transfers in place that will really reduce the fears

and anxiety that many people will have about price increases,

and to assure them that their income and their living standards

will be maintained,

and to have some effective measures in place before these subsidies

are removed.

Here, social protection can be very helpful.

In fact, once you can put some measures in place to reassure people,

and particularly having that important social dialogue,

having discussions with trade unions, with employers,

particularly small businesses, who will also be affected

by price increases, electricity price increases,

energy price increases, to be able, in an orderly way,

and based on some constructive discussion and social dialogue,

put in place the policies to remove the subsidies and divert

some of the savings that is possible to building

stronger and more adequate social protection systems.

I think this is also really key and needs to be taken into consideration alongside

the issues of loss of jobs and livelihoods

that is absolutely key and central to having a just transition.

-Indeed.

Social dialogue is very much at the heart of building consensus,

especially on issues that are sensitive for many.

The other element that is central, of course,

is climate finance.

Why is that argument about the role of wealthier countries

and their responsibility when it comes to climate finance not resonating as much

as it ought to, Kumi?

-Firstly,

we have to just remind ourselves, how did we get here.

So-called rich developed nations have built their economies

on dirty energy.

They extracted some of these resources, like oil,

coal,

and now gas, from parts of the Global South.

They have ignored what the science said for decades and decades.

They colluded,

the governments colluded with the fossil fuel industry,

the oil, coal,

and gas sector to keep

the public misinformed about the threat of climate change.

The truth is, if there was political courage

on the part of our leaders, we can move much faster

in realizing a commitment,

by the way, that the G20 made already in 2009,

which was to reduce and scrap fossil fuel subsidies.

It's gone more than a decade.

That commitment has not been realized.

Governments know what they should do.

They even agree what they should do, powerful governments,

and then they just walk away from it.

We see behavior that is opposite.

This report

holds the promise of forcing our governments to actually wake up

and smell the coffee and understand that we are running out of time

very, very fast.

The way we sell it is finding the right balance in the narrative

between historical redress

and self-interest.

With historical accountability,

let's be clear that the countries that have built the economies,

when we ask for contributions to the loss and damage fund or the Green Climate Fund

and so on,

from the Global South we're not asking for charity.

We're just asking for paying one's climate debt,

that if you built your economy on dirty energy,

and that's how you got ahead,

and others were left behind.

There's another reason.

That is, rich nations must understand that while it's true that poor countries

are paying the first and most brutal price in terms of impacts,

it's not as if the developed nations of the world

are not going to face impacts and are not facing impacts.

It's also in the self-interest,

which needs to be elevated,

the self-interest of wealthier nations to recognize by supporting

poor nations not to follow the same dirty energy pathway,

they are also acting in their own interests by preventing

climate shocks and extreme weather events in their own societies.

-We are almost out of time.

I just want to turn to you,

Shahra, if you have any closing final thoughts.

-I think a lot of what needs to be said has already been said very well

by Kumi.

I just want to maybe highlight that we do have a historic opportunity

at this point in time.

We're going to be moving into the discussions around financing

for development in 2025.

I think this is really the moment to be thinking about how to do good

on that notion of global solidarity that I think is not sufficiently present.

I think we need to really find the means of supporting countries.

At the moment,

our global financial architecture is not really set up for supporting

countries in finding the finances and the resources that they need in order

to put them into building these social protection systems,

public services,

and other necessities

to make people's livelihoods sustainable and to create the decent livelihoods

and decent jobs that we really need to see more of as we move forward.

I think there are opportunities in 2025 coming up.

I think we need to seize them and move forward in order to really avert

the kind of catastrophes that are surrounding us at this moment.

-Unfortunately, we have to leave it here.

Thank you to both of our guests today, and thanks to you,

our listeners for tuning in.

You can read the full report,

World Social Protection Report 2024 to 2026:

Universal Social Protection for Climate Action and a Just Transition

on our website.

You can also get updates on the ILO's work by following our social media channels.

Our handles are @ILO on Facebook, LinkedIn,

TikTok, and X.

On Instagram, we're @ilo.org.

Once again, thanks for listening, and join us next time.

For now, goodbye.