This overview is an introduction to the theme session on ‘Social protection and climate change’ in this IDS Bulletin . It first reviews the different dimensions of the relationship between social protection and climate change before presenting the articles of the session. The message that emerges from these analyses is twofold. On the one hand, there is a growing recognition that social protection needs to become ‘climate proofed’ if social protection interventions are to remain effective in the long term – in other words, social protection policymakers and practitioners cannot afford to ignore climate change any longer and need to integrate this new constraint into their planning and action plans. On the other hand, there is also growing evidence that social protection can play a critical role in reducing the immediate impact of climate change, and in the longer run, strengthen the resilience and adaptive capacity of people to climate change impacts.