2015 is a time for opportunity. The coming years will witness the development of three inter-related international policy frameworks around sustainable development, climate change and disasters. An international policy window for climate change and development is opening up in 2015, with the coincidence of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change COP 21 meeting to create a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the 3rd World Disaster Risk Reduction Conference on the Post-Hyogo Framework for Action, and the agreement of a new set of Sustainable Development Goals with associated financing mechanisms.

This Policy Paper makes a case to international policy makers, national government representatives, UN agencies and other development actors for an integrative approach across these three interrelated international processes centred on strengthening the lives and livelihoods of all people across the world. We present recommendations that underpin an approach to tackling climate change impacts that highlights the critical importance in a rapidly changing world of livelihood resilience for all; and emphasizing the need for livelihood protection especially for the world’s most vulnerable.