Climate Change Battle Plan Must Include Workers, Communities, Investors, Enviros
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told more than 400 leading investors at the Investor Summit on Climate Risk & Energy Solutions at the United Nations today that “The American labor movement is in the problem-solving business—looking for profitable investment opportunities that address climate risk and create jobs.”
We’re looking for partners, and we’re already working with many of you here today directly and indirectly to move capital to profitable and productive purposes, to step forward in addressing climate risk.
Click here for a video of the summit.
Trumka proposed hosting a dialogue on the risks of climate change and the need to move forward in a way that ensures broadly shared prosperity and a sustainable future.
Addressing climate risk is not a distraction from solving our economic problems…addressing climate risk means retooling our world—it means that every factory and power plant, every home and office, every rail line and highway, every vehicle, locomotive and plane, every school and hospital, must be modernized, upgraded, renovated or replaced with something cleaner, more efficient, less wasteful.
Taking on the threat of climate change means putting investment capital to work creating jobs.
Climate Change Talks a Tough Climb
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AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council Director Bob Baugh, a member of a global union delegation led by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), sends us another in a series of reports on the new round of United Nations climate change negotiations taking place now in Durban, South Africa.
Dorje Khati, a Sherpa and trade union member, has carried the ITUC climate message to the top of the world. After a 15-hour ascent to the top of Mount Everest on May 22, he planted the ITUC flag on the summit of the world’s highest mountain to represent the hopes and dreams of millions of workers for a global climate agreement.
Dorje is here in Durban with the flag and using it to inspire ITUC delegates and governments alike.
Mountaineering shares a lot in common with climate change talks: Reaching your goal can be a hard climb. The first week was filled with stories of hardened positions and dire predictions of failure. But a Saturday Day of Action march for climate justice helped inspire our global delegation.
It’s Undeniable: U.S. Chamber and Climate Deniers Share Warm Relationship
We all know that the Chamber of Commerce comes down on the wrong side of just about every issue that matters for working families. But here’s a staggering statistic to show you just how far out of the mainstream the Chamber swims.
In the 2010 midterm elections, the Chamber spent $32 million to elect their anointed candidates and 94 percent of that money went to candidates who are “climate deniers,” the people who think global warming, greenhouse gases and climate change are a left-wing plot. “I don’t need no stinking scientist to tell me about climate change, I’ve got Glenn Beck.”
This little nutty nugget comes from our friends at The U.S. Chamber Doesn’t Speak for Me, who point out that there actually is a method in the Chamber’s madness in funneling money to politicians who are certainly no friends of the earth.
Out of the 118 [Chamber] board members, at least 49 represent companies tied to fossil fuel use: oil, gas and coal, and related companies….Throughout its history, the Chamber has taken an anti-environmental stance, fighting to weaken clean air standards, opposing a hazardous waste dumping ban, working to diminish the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and lobbying against any national action on climate change.
Climate Change Talks: Compromise, Consensus and Solidarity in Cancun
AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council Director Bob Baugh was a member of a global union delegation led by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) attending the new round of United Nations climate change negotiations in Cancun, Mexico. This is the last of a series of blogs on the talks. Read the other blogs here, here and here.
As the climate change talks wrapped up last Friday, the two weeks of hard work by trade union members paid off when negotiators included language calling for a “just transition” to a cleaner environment in the final version of the long-term cooperative agreement (LCA) text that the various governments would discuss. A just transition to a green economy means workers would have the right to a voice in their workplace, the freedom to form unions and bargain collectively and access to training on the latest technology.
Earlier in the day, ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow put it on the line:
Governments must raise their sights. We expect ambitious targets, we expect fair climate financing for the most vulnerable nations, we expect a deal on REDD [Reducing Emssions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation], we expect a commitment to transparency and we demand the respect for workers which requires the commitments of all governments to a just transition.
Climate Change Talks: Unions Still Optimistic on ‘Just Transition’ Language
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AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council Director Bob Baugh is a member of a global union delegation led by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) attending the new round of United Nations climate change negotiations in Cancun, Mexico. This is the third of a series of blogs on the talks. Read the first blogs here and here.
Many people had modest expectations for this round of climate talks. But there is still a chance they will be pleasantly surprised.
As the negotiations continue, our international union delegation is troubled by the absence of “just transition” language in the text on a global shared vision for the future
A just transition to a green economy means workers would have the right to a voice in their workplace, the freedom to form unions and bargain collectively and access to training on the latest technology.
Political Climate Can’t Stop Climate Change Initiatives
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AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council Director Bob Baugh is a member of a global union delegation led by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) attending the new round of United Nations climate change negotiations in Cancun, Mexico. This is the second of a series of blogs on the talks. Read the first blog here.
Congress’ failure to pass climate change legislation and the election of a conservative majority in the next House have led many delegates from other countries to ask if the United States can meet the commitments it made in Copenhagen to reduce carbon emissions.
Workers Seek ‘Just Transition’ to Green Economy in Cancun Climate Talks
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AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council Director Bob Baugh is a member of a global union delegation led by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) attending the new round of United Nations climate change negotiations in Cancun, Mexico. This is the first of a series of blogs on the talks.
After the acrimonious climate change talks in Copenhagen last December and in Bonn last June, delegates to the 16th meeting of the Committee of the Parties (COP 16) come to the table in Cancun with reduced expectations. The delegates hope these climate talks will result in specific decisions that can serve as stepping stones for the next major meeting on climate change (COP 17) in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2012.
Global Union Leaders: Focus on Jobs, Not Deficits
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Global union leaders called on G-20 governments to deliver the promise made at the Pittsburgh summit to “put quality employment at the heart of the recovery” and focus on creating jobs in the short term to sustain the recovery and reduce public deficits in the medium term.
The union leaders from the G-20 countries are warning their governments that efforts to cut budgets and impose fiscal austerity now could plunge the international economy into another, deeper recession. The statement was issued yesterday by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and the Trade Union Advisory Council (TUAC) to the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD).
Managing Expectations and Decisions on Climate Change
AFL-CIO Union Industries Director Bob Baugh is a member of a global union delegation, led by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), attending the next round of the United Nations climate change negotiations in Bonn, Germany. This is the last of a series of blogs on the talks. Be sure to check out part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4.
The contentious April United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNCFF) meeting came with demands by the five states who had not agreed to the Copenhagen Accord that the next draft text for an agreement make no mention of it.
Many others, including the AFL-CIO and ITUC, urged that the process not start over but that it should build on language where there had been consensus. Margaret Mukahanana-Sangarwe, the savvy chair of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA), the main body responsible for the climate treaty, did both.
The draft text, while never mentioning the Copenhagen Accord by name, contained the elements from the Accord. It also built off the earlier drafts clearly incorporating the language where consensus had been achieved on such issues as just transition, forestry and adaptation as well as areas where much work remains. The focused question and answer process the chair has imposed has helped the dialogue. All are anxious to see how this information is incorporated into a new draft that was expected to be delivered before the final plenary this afternoon.
Mood of Climate Change Talks Change Like The Weather
AFL-CIO Union Industries Director Bob Baugh is a member of a global union delegation, led by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), attending the next round of the United Nations climate change negotiations in Bonn, Germany. This is the fourth of a series of blogs on the talks. Be sure to check out part 1, part 2 and part 3.
As anyone who has ever negotiated a contract knows there is a rhythm and mood to the talks. Copenhagen was tough. The buildup of expectations far exceeded reality and as the days progressed frustration and anger became the prevailing mood. It took 30 heads of state to hammer out the Copenhagen Accord that all but five states agreed to.
Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Sudan opposed the accord and continued to agitate against it. The main body responsible for the climate treaty, the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA), had an acrimonious set of meetings in early April. This was followed by a Bolivian-sponsored First World Conference of the People on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in mid April. The newly elected AWG-LCA chair, Margaret Mukahanana-Sangarwe from Zimbabwe and Daniel Reifsnyder from the U.S., the vice-chair, had their work cut out for them in Bonn.
