Following the ‘Green Jobs’ Road from Bali to Poznan

U.S. Labor/ITUC delegates to climate change talks in Poland.

Bob Baugh, executive director of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council and co-chair of the AFL-CIO Energy Task Force, is in Poznan, Poland, for the United Nations Climate Change Conference.

The meeting, which was scheduled to conclude Dec. 12, is building upon the framework negotiated last year in Bali, Indonesia, and includes nearly 100 union delegates.

What a difference a year can make.

Poznan is not Bali, nor were these meetings meant to be. As Harlan Watson, the chief U.S. negotiator, told our delegation:

This year is a way station between the Bali framework and the drive to a final agreement in Copenhagen.

What this round of talks will look for is a statement that shows some progress. There are also indications that major advanced developing economies such as China, South Korea, Brazil and others are, for the first time, identifying measurable steps for climate change mitigation, but financing will be a major issue. Major negotiating papers are scheduled for March and June meetings.

Part of the holdup is the wait for the new U.S team. Every U.S labor delegate has been congratulated over and over for our role in the historic 2008 election. As my fellow bloggers have noted, anticipation is sky-high, and feelings toward the U.S. are very warm and hopeful. Climate change and energy policy statements made by President-elect Obama fired through this wired crowd as soon as they hit the Internet.

While the minimal progress at Poznan can be frustrating, there are other measures of success to consider. One is the role of the U.S. labor delegation. A year ago, with the exception of two members, our entire delegation was new to the subject, and for most it was the first international engagement. We were on a learning curve at home with climate change legislation even as we contributed to the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) Bali statement. While in Bali, we held a meeting with the leaders of the major U.S. environmental organizations.

At that meeting, we brought up the issue of “green jobs.” We told the environmentalists what a great brand it was, but how little it meant to working people, our union members. We told them the environmental community most often seemed to talk about green jobs as something new and only tied to renewable energy. And, when done this way, ordinary working people were left out. Those green jobs were about someone else, not them.

In our mind, green jobs had to mean more, much more. We said, “Unless ordinary people can see the connection between the vision and opportunity of green jobs to their values, skills and work, we run the risk of failure.” The environmentalists were stunned, and they took our words seriously.

This year it was striking how far we have come since that conversation. Leaving Bali, the labor movement set out to help define and chart the development of green jobs from our legislative efforts to much-needed studies and reports. In Poznan, these efforts have been showcased daily in major side events every day this past week. The ITUC and International Labor Organization (ILO) led off with its report, “Green Jobs: Towards Decent Work in a Sustainable, Low Carbon World.” The Cornell Global Labor Institute helped to author the report.

The Blue-Green Alliance was next up, with a meeting featuring its member organizations: USW, IUE-CWA, SEIU, Sierra Club and the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The meeting highlighted a new report that the Blue Green Alliance sponsored with the Center for American Progress and the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts. The Green Recovery program creates good jobs and build a low-carbon economy.

The AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council, IBB and Environmental Defense Fund sponsored a panel the following day to highlight our new report, “Manufacturing Climate Solutions,” prepared by the Center on Globalization, Governance & Competitiveness at Duke University. The study, also sponsored by the UA and AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department, is the first in a series of reports examining specific green technologies and the importance of their supply chain to good job creation in the United States.

The first report covered LED lighting, high-performance windows, auxiliary power units, concentrated solar and super-soils systems. Each offers unique growth opportunities that cut carbon emissions. The report can be found here and also will be available shortly on a new AFL-CIO Green Jobs website.

The Blue-Green Alliance held the final labor meeting, which focused on carbon leakage and border adjustments. In layman’s terms, carbon leakage means offshoring of production to nations that are less carbon-efficient. Border adjustments involve a tax or tariff on energy-intensive goods imported from nations that are not part of an international carbon emission regime.

The ITUC closed out the week with a meeting featuring Guy Ryder, secretary general of the global federation. He echoed the themes we made in every side event and in meetings with government delegations all week:

We have a unique and historic opportunity to transform our societies for the better. This is all the more important at this time of economic crisis, when a Green New Deal can provide the basis for a recovery that both provides decent work and contributes to the fight against climate change.

Yes, a year can make a difference. We can take pride in how far we have come. Last year as unions, we challenged ourselves to find the green jobs road. Working with allies, we have begun to map the way and left our mark on the Poznan meetings as a result. We head into the next year better informed, better prepared and with the recognition of the long road ahead.

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