Trade unions and climate change

1
Trade unions and climate change

• Equity, Solidarity and Justice
• in the fight against climate change

2
Why are Trade Unions into it?

• Life on Earth and consequently the human
  civilization, the economy and employment depend
  on our environment
• Action for climate change creates opportunities
  for the world of work that shouldnt go wasted
• Action for climate change could jeopardize
  certain jobs and we need to protect the workers
  before others decide without us

3
Challenges for the Unions

• 2008-2009 Efforts have been done to establish
  the ITUC position on climate change. In 2010, the
  2nd ITUC Congress adopted a position
• Trade unions have been officially recognized as
  constituencies to the UNFCCC process
• We need to communicate to other actors
• the linkages between climate change and union
  responsibilities work
• the essential principles for transition
  solidarity and social justice

4
Impacts transformations on employment

• Effects on employment from climate-induced
  disruptions unemployment in climate-sensitive
  sectors and climate refugees
• effects on employment from the implementation of
  adaptation measures (e.g. investments in
  infrastructure or transformations in production),
  and
• effects on employment of the impacts associated
  with mitigation efforts

5
Unions priorities

• The need for an ambitious climate change
  agreement at the COP16
• The need to understand and address the impacts
  transformations of the world of work through
  accompanying measures, grouped under the concept
  of Just Transition
• Enhance the potential of workplace action in
  reducing emissions

6
An ambitious climate change agreement

• No more than 2C
• 25-40 emission reductions in developed
  countries. Rapid move towards a clean development
  path in developing countries
• Just transition Decent Work as a core principle
  for the agreement
• Sufficient funding for adaptation resilience of
  the most vulnerable communities (through public
  funds and new sources e.g. FTT)

7
Just transition

• Investments, in order to generate employment
  opportunities and new technologies
• Training Skills Development for workers to fill
  these new jobs and achieve high efficiency in
  running the new technologies
• Assessment of consequences prior to decisions
• Social Protection
• Local development policies
• Social Dialogue

8
Workplaces potential

• Energy resource efficiency, better management
  of waste
• Workers trainings can be made with the
  participation of the unions
• Mobility of employees
• New rights for raising awareness
• Unions have workplace and sectoral expertise that
  should be used in designing and delivering new
  policies

9

• Thank you!
• Georgios.Altintzis_at_ituc-csi.org
• http//www.ituc-csi.org/climate-change-blog.html