Paper short abstract:

This presentation explores possibilities for bringing together policy approaches to the climate crisis and informal work, focusing on issues surrounding the state, class coalitions and formal employment creation.

Paper long abstract:

Efforts to address the climate crisis and informal work remain largely separate on the international policy agenda. This presentation offers some reflections on how this divide might be bridged, focusing on three issues that are central to thinking about informality that will have to be addressed if a coherent policy approach is to be put forward. First, it considers the possible implications of the disconnect between the central role of the state in responding to the climate crisis and the fact that the relationship between the state and the informal economy is frequently adversarial and defined by forms of exclusion. Second, it examines the importance of class in thinking about climate change and informality, focusing particularly on the class alignments that might be needed to mobilize around addressing each, how these might be reconciled and how they might be formed across the Global North and the Global South. Finally, it explores the question of where and how informal work might fit within policy proposals that seek to combine efforts to address inequality and climate change, and, in particular, if what should instead be prioritized is formal employment creation in the Global South.