Work health and safety, adaptation, and climate change

At the nexus of accelerating climate change and efforts to achieve decent work, sit a range of challenges for labour. To date, the problems of industry reorganisation, sustainable jobs and just transitions have drawn most attention from scholars, labour and climate movements, and bodies like the International Labour Organization. Far less attention has been paid to the manifest and urgent work health and safety (WHS) impacts of global warming. This chapter explores the WHS impacts of climate change, with particular attention on the problem of high heat, and considers the issues in line with how the Sustainable Development Goals approach this issue. The chapter argues that the notion of climate precarity, alongside a radical politicisation of adaptation, can usefully frame discussion and more sustained action in this context.