AFL-CIO Unions in Poland for U.N. Climate Change Conference

ITUC delegates join with members of the Japanese Trade Union Confederation (RENGO) in a meeting with the Japanese Environment Minister.

Some 8,000 delegates and observers from around the world are gathered in Poznan, Poland, for the 12-day United Nations Climate Change Conference (UNCCC). This ministerial meeting will build upon the framework negotiated in Bali, Indonesia, a year ago. Of the nearly 100 union delegates, more than 20 are from North America, including Bob Baugh, executive director of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council and co-chair of the AFL-CIO Energy Task Force. Baugh sends us the first of a series of posts by members of the labor delegation.

The December 2007 climate change meeting in Bali marked the first time the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) achieved nongovernmental organization (NGO) status for the ongoing climate change negotiations.

With NGO status, ITUC representatives were recognized as official delegates and could participate directly in key working sessions of the conference. The Bali meetings helped put a negotiating framework in place for developing a new set of strategies to replace the current agreement on reducing global warming—known as the Kyoto Protocol—which expires in 2012. The target for achieving a new international agreement is 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

This year, the U.S. union delegation will have a broad representation of AFL-CIO, affiliates: AFSCME, ATU, IUE-CWA, IAM, IBB, IBEW, USW, TWU, Utility Workers, UMWA and the Industrial Union Council.

The meeting in Poznan, set to run through Dec. 12, is the 14th meeting of the worldwide parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change since it was negotiated in 1992. Under the Kyoto Protocol, negotiated in 1997 as an amendment to the 1992 treaty, industrialized nations agreed to legally binding reductions in greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide. However, the United States has never ratified the Kyoto Protocol.

The Poznan meeting will focus on the tough issues shaped by the Bali framework agreement. These include emission-reduction targets, identifying the differentiated responsibilities of all nations, technology transfer, financing change, financial assistance for developing nations and green jobs.

The targets issue is a controversial one. The 2020 recommendations of the U.N. intergovernmental panel for carbon emission reductions by developed nations far exceed the standards suggested in the most recent U.S. legislation and are not seen as technically achievable. However, there is much agreement on what steps we should be taking to invest in renewable technologies, clean coal and energy-efficiency measures that create good jobs.

During the week, the U.S union delegation plans to meet with the U.S. congressional delegation and negotiators to learn about the state of negotiations and discuss our interest in job creation, industrial revitalization, border adjustment, investments in clean energy, transparency and workers’ rights.

We also will be participating in the ITUC task forces on deforestation, mitigation, just transition and more. The work groups will participate in specific ministry-related meetings prior to the general sessions. AFL-CIO delegates also will participate in a side event with the Environmental Defense Fund to present our new study, “Manufacturing Climate Solutions.”

There is a great deal of speculation and excitement about where the United States is headed under the Obama administration. With China newly installed as the No. 1 emitter of greenhouse gases and the United States now in second place, both nations are at the center of any accord. The role of the developing world is a new chapter for climate accords. The Kyoto Protocol had focused on developed nations to the exclusion of the developing world. That is no longer viewed as viable.

The challenge for the climate change negotiating process is to find a way forward with all nations moving together to make changes that are measurable and verifiable and that work for workers and their communities.

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