This study focuses on and engages with recent global environmental scholarly debates on the best-suited option that a less developed country such as Zimbabwe can adopt between adaptation and mitigation measures that simultaneously ensure sustainable long-term development. Zimbabwe, despite its low carbon footprint, is disproportionately impacted by climate change as evinced by the worst tropical cyclone on record in the Southern Hemisphere, i.e. the 2019 Cyclone Idai, which caused severe flooding in the country and its neighbours, Mozambique and Malawi, and a humanitarian catastrophe of deaths, crops, livestock, and infrastructure loss. This makes our research agenda urgent and relevant. The study privileges analysis of rich primary and secondary data available from semi-structured oral interviews with both expert informants and ‘ordinary’ peoples experiencing climate change, contemporary reports, journal articles, and books. The project adopts qualitative and comparative methods (with other countries in Southern Africa), case studies, and sustainable livelihood approaches. Much evidence will be collected using multiple sources; content analysis, archival/library documentary research, and participant observation. This research seeks to fill a dearth of knowledge on the nexus between sustainable development and climate change in Zimbabwe. We argue that approaches that focus on global or regional dimensions to these issues, while important, disguise other more mundane and specific local environmental problems. Further, the impact of climate change on sustainable development should be differentiated and considered discretely. In the process, our proposed study makes a historically nuanced evaluation of the extent to which local livelihoods and the environment are impacted by political economy considerations as well as proffering practicable working solutions that are both sustainable in the medium to long-term and cost-effective.