Dr Vanessa Burns

Adaptation Work: A Climate-Forced Labour Regime (2025-) Despite the immense effort invested in adapting to climate change, most adaptation labour is not yet recognised as work. Existing frameworks like the just transition and Green Jobs programme primarily focus on formal sector employment. Yet, most adaptation work is informal, unpaid, and performed at the community level. Consequently, most adaptation workers may not be recognised in the just transition and the Green Jobs programme. Those most vulnerable to climate change must perform adaptation work to avoid high-risk impacts, but lack essential labour protections. This project aims to formally recognise adaptation work and advocate for its inclusion within national and international labour law and policy frameworks.

Adaptation and Indigenous Labour: Colonial Extraction on the Climate Frontier (The Leverhulme Trust 2021-2024) This research examines climate change adaptation labour in the sugarcane industry of the South Pacific. The research uses historical, ethnographic, and collaborative qualitative methods to answer the following questions: How does environmental violence dictate the conditions of indigenous adaptation labour?; How do these conditions compare to the conditions of historical slave labour on the Pacific colonial frontier?; How do minority world economies benefit from Indigenous Pacific adaptation labour?