More than 10,000 delegates and observers from around the world are gathered in Bali, Indonesia, for the 10-day United Nations Climate Change Conference (UNCCC). Of the 90 union delegates, more than 20 are from North America, including Bob Baugh, executive director of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council and chair of the Energy Task Force. Baugh sends us the first of a series of posts by members of the North American delegation. 

Union representatives for the first time are allowed to directly participate in key working sessions of the conference, meeting here to discuss strategies for current rules on reducing global warming—known as the Kyoto protocols—which expire in 2012.

After a 35-hour trip, Dave Foster of the United Steelworkers (USW) and I arrived at our hotel in Bali at 1 a.m. The weather reminds us of Washington, D.C., in the summer—82 degrees with 80 percent humidity.

Like our trip, the road to this conference in Bali has been a long one. The international debate over climate change began nearly two decades ago. The first international political response to climate change came with the adoption of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992, which sets out a plan of action for stabilizing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, such as methane, nitrous oxide and, in particular, carbon dioxide. The convention went into effect in 1994 and now has 192 signers, including the United States. 

In December 1997, meeting in Kyoto, Japan, developed countries and countries in transition to a market economy agreed to reduce their overall emissions of six greenhouse gases by an average of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012. Many developing nations and the United States have not signed on to the Kyoto agreement.    

Since the Kyoto protocol was signed, the scientific research related to climate change has improved dramatically. In fall 2006, the AFL-CIO formed the Energy Task Force. The more than 20 unions and trade departments that comprise the task force represent a broad cross-section of the industrial, construction and public sector unions of the federation.   

In February, the task force published a white paper, Jobs and Energy for the 21st Century, which says in part:

a growing body of scientific evidence has confirmed the environmental challenges posed by global warming. Human use of fossil fuels is undisputedly contributing to global warming, causing rising sea levels, changes in climate patterns and threats to coastal areas.

It is time for our nation to take bold steps to meet the 21st century challenges related to energy policy. 

Click here to read the entire paper and other related materials.  

The paper identifies climate change as both a crisis and a strategic economic development opportunity and it helps establish a set of principles to guide our participation in the discussion:

• Our nation should embrace a balanced approach to climate change that assures diverse, abundant, affordable energy supplies, creates good paying jobs for American workers, improves the environment and reduces our dangerous dependence on foreign oil.
• We support an approach to carbon emissions that does not give an advantage to one sector over another and has timetables and standards that allow for the development of new technologies that can provide clean energy at prices close to conventional sources.
• Energy incentives and investments by the federal government must be based on economic development principles that protect the environment and create jobs but do not encourage sending manufacturing jobs offshore. 
• Any carbon emission/cap and trade program must provide a system of incentives and penalties to assure that major developing nations, like China and India, participate.  

Over the past year, the AFL-CIO’s position on climate change has moved much closer to the ongoing efforts of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), which represents 168 million working men and women in 153 countries and territories.

In May, members of AFL-CIO Energy Task Force met with their global union counterparts in New York City, thanks to the hard work of Sean Sweeney from Cornell University’s Global Labor Institute. 

The ITUC’s statement on climate change sends a powerful message about the nature of the climate change crisis and the opportunity for change that creates jobs, better communities and reduces poverty. The ITUC demands a role for workers at all levels in government decision making, in sustainable development, decent jobs/green jobs and in the workplace. It also calls for “stronger laws and regulations that promote trade union and employment rights. 

The ITUC has called for aggressive targets for cutting carbon emissions. While the AFL-CIO has concerns about the level and timing of some of the specific ITUC recommendations with respect to emission targets, we wholeheartedly support ITUC’s statement that the solution to climate change must involve all nations “in accordance with the principle of ‘common but differentiated responsibilities,’ based on each country’s stage of economic and social development.”  

The U.S. labor delegation to Bali includes 21 leaders and staff from the AFL-CIO, Boilermakers (IBB), IUE-CWA, Mine Workers, Oregon AFL-CIO, SEIU, Transport Workers (TWU), UNITE HERE and USW. Three USW delegates from Canada also will join us.

You can keep up with ongoing developments in Bali by clicking here.

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