Addressing climate change from social justice and human rights perspectives is a global challenge, and international negotiations dealing with climate change need to incorporate such concerns. This paper reviews existing literature on sustainable development, social justice, human rights, and climate change justice and argues that all approaches lead to a focus on providing everyone a guaranteed social minimum of basic needs, or a social floor. A social floor needs to be dynamic and flexible so that it also includes a risk adjustment (or insurance) component to compensate for the unknown direct and indirect impacts of climate change on households, communities and nations.