Climate Change Targets or Climate Change Actions?

Lauren Asplin from IUE-CWA speaks to U.S. negotiators at the climate change conference.

Jim Hunter, Utility Division director at the Electrical Workers (IBEW), is among union delegates taking part in the 12-day United Nations Climate Change Conference (UNCCC) in Poznan, Poland. The meeting is building upon the framework negotiated last year in Bali, Indonesia. Of the nearly 100 union delegates, Hunter is among the more than 20 from North America and sends us this report.

This is my first climate change conference and it is truly overwhelming. The labor delegation started with training sessions Dec. 3–4, with the conference opening the afternoon of Dec. 4. The first thing that hits you is the enormous size of the buildings for the meetings. You need a map to find your way around the complex. The daily program is 37 two-sided pages long. There are meetings, press briefings, briefings of ministers and heads of the delegations and side events every day from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Massive amounts of information are presented, and we need to work hard to convey labor’s point of view. 

There is a general sense that not much will be resolved in Poznan, but the groundwork will be set for the final decisions in Copenhagen, Denmark. The sense is that the United States will move forward now that we have progressive and competent new leadership. Our days start at a labor meeting at 9 a.m. and end with a ride back to the hotel between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. The U.S. labor delegation met with the head of the U.S. delegation, Dr. Harlan Watson, on Friday. He gave us almost an hour of his time. We were able to talk frankly with him, and his answers to us were honest and open. The U.S. delegation is mainly composed of career diplomats.

It is clear labor’s participation in the talks and the degree that we are considered in decisions have increased substantially since the elections. The key point that I took away from the meeting was Watson’s candid comment at the end of the meeting: He said we have been negotiating and negotiating about language and not about substance.

I believe that statement is right on target. Talking about timetables for targets such as a 25 percent to 40 percent reduction below 1990 levels of carbon dioxide by 2020, without a clear plan on how to achieve that goal, is useless. The studies we have seen from such organizations as the Electric Power Research Institute presume the United States will engage in clean coal development and build new nuclear plants along with renewables and conservation to reach 1990 levels by 2020. The point is that we need a clear action plan to achieve CO-2 reductions—not just setting goals without a plan.

Labor will understand a plan to build 40 nuclear plants and 50 clean coal plants, along with hundreds of thousand of wind turbines and solar arrays. The IBEW recognizes the jobs attached to large-scale transmission projects to transport the renewable energy from the source to the load centers. There is clear evidence that we must reduce our CO-2 output, the problem is deciding what is possible to do and how much commitment we will have from our government to build the solutions.

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