Two Union Voices Challenge Climate Change Summit

Bob Baugh, executive director of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council and co-chair of the AFL-CIO Energy Task Force, sent us this report from the climate change talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, where 40 U.S. union members were part of a 400-member global union movement delegation led by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). Read our previous blogs on the climate talks here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

Two trade union voices were heard in very different ways in the closing days at the climate change summit. One was from a former trade union leader in South America, Brazil President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and the other was from the president of the ITUC, Sharan Burrow, who also heads the Australian Confederation of Trade Unions.

Lula, former leader of the Brazilian trade union CUT, emerged as a major voice trying to bring reason to the climate change negotiations. In two remarkable speeches over a 24-hour period, he thrust Brazil to the forefront of the talks. On Thursday, he expressed frustration about the lack of progress and made an exceptional statement, saying Brazil would regulate major greenhouse gas-emitting industries to make them cleaner and more efficient. But, there was more to come.

On Friday, in an inspirational speech to the plenary, Lula said that what he had seen in Copenhagen

reminds me of my days as a trade unionist and negotiating with employers when we were too far away and not well-prepared to reach agreement.

He then went on to put some serious offers on the table. Lula said “transparency is a reasonable request by developing nations but it must come with respect for sovereignty.” He closed by saying he believes in God, believes that miracles can happen and that he wanted to be a part of making a miracle happen in Copenhagen.  

At the closing session Friday, Burrow delivered the following message on behalf of the global union movement:

Working people around the world and their families are watching. They are depending on [the world's leaders] to commit to a binding agreement that delivers a habitable planet, decent work and financial support for the most vulnerable.

She also said trade unions support the highest ambitions for binding targets in developed countries and ambitious actions in developing nations. We urge nations to accept transparency, to ensure trust through a global treaty that is completed in the first half of 2010.

Wealthy nations must lay the foundations for that trust with the financing and technology to kick-start low-carbon development, she said. The leaders also must make the investment to ensure climate resilience, employment and decent work, Burrow said.

Burrow closed with this admonition:

Those investments will transform our economies and create millions of new jobs as we rebuild after the devastation of the global financial crisis. We must all take responsibility in this global challenge.

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