More than 10,000 delegates and observers from around the world traveled to Bali, Indonesia, for the U.N. Climate Change Conference from Dec. 3-14. Of the 90 union delegates, more than 20 were from North America, including Barbara Byrd, secretary-treasurer of the Oregon AFL-CIO, who sent us this report. U.S. delegates sent us a series of posts from the conference: here, here, here, here and here.

As the climate change summit neared its final hours, our international labor delegation submitted a summary statement, which was read on the plenary floor by the Tony Maher, president of Australia’s Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union.

The statement emphasized the major issues affecting working people:

• A “just transition” to a new, low-carbon economy, the impact of climate change.
• Mitigation efforts on the jobs and lives of our members.
• The union movement’s demand to be part of the decision-making process that will lead to a new climate agreement in 2009.

Earlier in the week, we were excited to witness the first labor delegate to address a plenary session. Roger Toussaint, president of New York City Transport Workers (TWU) Local 100, spoke movingly to several hundred delegates about the need to invest in the economies of the poorest countries, which are hardest hit by climate change. We also were involved in a series of meetings with national delegations, environmental ministers and other high-level officials of the U.N.’s climate change office.

As a union member from the United States, I’ve been embarrassed that my own country has been actively blocking progress toward an agreement. The official U.S. representatives joined with those of Canada and Japan to reject emissions reductions targets for the post-Kyoto period—this, in spite of the overwhelming scientific consensus that we must start now if we wish to avert climate disaster.

At the same time, in the Bali spirit of bad and good co-existing in one place, we heard former Vice President Al Gore deliver a very different and positive message. Fresh from receiving the Nobel Prize, he urged delegates not to be discouraged, but to move forward in the knowledge that after November 2008, they would have a much better U.S. administration to work with. 

My thoughts are turning toward home now.  In Oregon, the state AFL-CIO and its affiliates have for the past couple of years been engaged in moving an agenda of renewable energy and good jobs via our coordination of the activities of the Oregon Apollo Alliance. In October, our convention delegates passed resolutions on climate change and jobs, and we’ve set up a task force of affiliated union leaders to help us think through the issue, its impact on our members and implications for our policy work.

We recognize the Western states will be enacting far-reaching policies in the next few years, and we believe the union movement must be at the table to debate with other stakeholders how best to craft climate change legislation. Like our brothers and sisters in the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), we want to raise issues of equity and public investments to promote job training, the creation of good jobs and protections for workers who face potential dislocation.

We will need to educate our own members as well, so they will not only understand the complicated technical issues, but also so they will feel the urgency that drives the work of the labor delegates here in Bali.

As I prepared to leave Bali, I thought about the cab driver who took me home one night. He talked about the hope that the Balinese feel for positive outcomes from this climate change convention—to help their island adapt successfully to the huge changes that global warming is bringing to their lives. Their worst fear, he said, is that nothing will happen but talk. In the United States, we need to talk. But we also need to act, not just for our own sake, but for the sake of our brothers and sisters around the world already suffering from the devastating consequences of climate change. As Gore said at the conference, we already have the science and the technology to solve the climate crisis. All that is lacking is political will, but:

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