Wrap Up of Bali: Time for Us to Save the Planet

Eugenio Del Valle of Mexico City presents the ITUC statement to the U.N. climate conference in Bali.

More than 10,000 delegates and observers from around the world traveled to Bali, Indonesia, for the U.N. Climate Change Conference (UNCCC) from Dec. 3-14. Of the 90 union delegates, more than 20 were from North America, including Bob Baugh, executive director of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council and chair of the Energy Task Force, who finalized this report after he got back to the United States. U.S. delegates sent us a series of posts from the conference: here, here, here, here, here and here.  

When I began this blog, I was sitting in the opening ministry session for the UNCCC. The new prime minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, addressed the delegation. Earlier that day, he signed the Kyoto protocol and delivered it to the United Nations before speaking. We heard from the president of Indonesia and watched a compelling video from Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the World Meteorological Organization and U.N. Environment Program Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). There was a somber note and a moment of silence for those U.N. workers and citizens in Algeria who died in the terrorist attack in Algeria. 

Looking out across the delegates from more than 180 nations makes you think about the hope embodied in an organization like the United Nations. It is a massive organization of competing and, at times, conflicting interests. However, it’s impossible not to feel that this may be the most important thing it has ever attempted to do. As Rudd just said, “We are here to save the planet.”  

Big job—but not many alternatives but there is a path if we choose to take it.    

It has been an intense week for the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and North American members of the delegation. One thing we have all learned is that every country and every union sees the challenge of climate change as an opportunity to create jobs in their economy. The ITUC mission at the conference was to get employment and workers’ rights on the agenda for the next two years of studies and negotiations.

As we discussed in our delegation meeting, unions are all about employment and workers’ rights at the core of our mission. This meant employment in the fullest sense of the word. Thus our interventions in various meetings were designed to raise a broad set of employment related issues: understanding the full economic and social consequences of climate change, the job creation opportunities and quality of those jobs, the impacts on affected workers/communities from climate change and the standards for a just transition. We also spoke to worker skills and training needs, the role of unions in decision making with government and in tripartite formulations, the role of unions and workers in the greening of the workplace; and a broad definition of green jobs that covered everything from clean coal and renewables to mass transit and advanced automotive technology. 

Another important element of the climate change discussion is one that challenges conventional economic wisdom. For the past 100 years, the traditional economic models suggest that increased energy production and consumption and the resulting increase in greenhouse gas emissions are tied to prosperity. At the ITUC side event, the environmental minister from Spain challenged this concept head on. He said, “To change we must decouple green house gas growth from the idea of prosperity and competitiveness.” Spain has been doing just that. Last year, Spain’s economy grew while greenhouse gas emissions declined by 4 percent. 

As many of us began our journey home, the news came in that after tense negotiations, a Bali road map had been adopted. One major breakthrough was a first-ever agreement for by China and other developing nations that they, too, must take measurable and verifiable steps to cut their rate of greenhouse gas growth. In turn, the United States and other developing nations made important concessions on the issue of assistance to, and transfer of, green technology to developing nations. These are issues the ITUC supported and ones we have raised domestically with Congress in our legislative efforts.

As our delegation came to a greater understanding of what our trade union brothers and sisters were trying to do in their own countries, we were encouraged about our own efforts in this nation. The ability to share experiences with our European counterparts on cap and trade, carbon capture and renewables was helpful to both sides as we deal with domestic legislation and they deal with reform of their trading and investment programs. 

All of us return home with the recognition that there is a long and winding road ahead filled with challenges and opportunities. The good news is we are not alone. Bali has given us a road map. Now it’s our job to save the planet. 

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