During the last decade the intersection between social welfare research and the ecological crisis has been gaining increasing interest through discussions about sustainable welfare and eco-social policies. Less attention has been paid, however, to eco-social risks and to how climate change “will impact the nature and distribution of social risks across different parts of the population” (Hirvilammi et al. 2023), even though these kinds of risks which are directly related to human health and security are expected to increase with further global warming. In order to handle eco- social risks just and effective social security systems and policies will be needed.

However, in order to say something about welfare state responses and social protection schemes it is crucial to know in what way these eco-social risks are manifested and for example if certain groups in society are more or less exposed to them. Literature on disaster risks highlight an ‘exposure bias’, where it is argued that “poor people are disproportionally affected by natural hazards and disasters” (Hallegatte et al. 2020). Also the sustainable welfare literature point to the fact that socio-economically disadvantaged groups are disproportionally affected by climate change. With preliminary insights from the disaster research field, it seems as though this general narrative is valid in certain geographical contexts but not in all and not with respect to different kinds of eco-social risks. Research also points to the fact that in some cases high income residents will be more impacted by for example coastal flooding.

Moreover, and connected to the discussions about ‘exposure bias’, the concept of vulnerability is highly salient in the disaster literature, emphasizing that certain people or groups are particularly vulnerable to environmental hazards. There is, however, a lack of clarity on what this concept holds. It is often used generically, simply to say that inequalities in relation to environmental hazards exist. The concept per se is rarely defined or discussed, and the specifics of alleged inequalities and vulnerabilities are seldom clarified. In addition, there are different terms and concepts in vogue to denote inequalities, making it difficult to discern what alleged inequalities studies actually point at.

In this article we review the empirical research on eco-social risks in a European welfare regime context. The aim of the study is to present an overview of the empirical research on the unequal impacts of environmental hazards on people and communities in a number of European countries that each represent various European welfare regimes. In particular, the study aims to examine what people

and communities are considered to be particularly affected by environmental hazards in various European countries. We also analyze how the vulnerability concept, when being used, is conceptualized with respect to environmental hazards. Lastly, the study also aims to discuss potential welfare state responses and social protection schemes to meet these new kinds of eco-social risks that contemporary welfare states increasingly are faced with.