13 December, 2010
The ICEM tracks climate negotiations because of their profound implications for all workers, but especially industrial workers in energy-producing and energy-intensive industries. The Global Union Federation supports a fair, ambitious, and legally-binding climate treaty, but insists that decision-makers consider the social implications.
Existing jobs must be made more sustainable, and new, or “green jobs,” can be created, but they must not be “mcjobs.” They must provide decent work. This implies a need for national industrial strategies. Strong social programmes must back specific “Just Transition” provisions.
Lastly, the world must not forget that fundamental structural changes in our economy are needed as the financial crisis demonstrated that the same kind of short-sighted thinking that has jeopardized the environment, equally has jeopardized economic stability.
After the failure that was COP-15 in Copenhagen in 2009, COP-16 in Cancún, Mexico, opened to low expectations. Many felt that the best that could be hoped for was to put the process back on track, build some trust, and aim for real decisions at COP-17 in 2011.
ICEM’s Brian Kohler speaking at plenary session of Ad-hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action
At COP-15, before the talks collapsed and the so-called “Copenhagen Accord” emerged from secret backroom talks, trade unions had succeeded in winning the insertion of a paragraph in the “Shared Vision” portion of the Long-term Cooperative Action draft, covering a range of issues including adaptation, mitigation, financing, research and development, technology transfer, training and education, and Just Transition. This paragraph came to be known as the “Just Transition and Decent Work” paragraph.
For reasons unknown, the Chair of the Ad-hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA) removed this paragraph from the document under discussion, and labour was faced with a fight to get it back.
The Just Transition language agreed that “addressing climate change requires a paradigm shift towards building a low-emission society that offers substantial opportunities and ensures continued high growth and sustainable development, based on innovative technologies and more sustainable production and consumption and lifestyles, while ensuring a just transition of the workforce that creates decent work and quality jobs.”
Related stakeholder language that was also missing recognized the need for civil society to participate in decisions that affect their lives, workplaces, and communities.
Recovering this language became a priority of the trade union delegation to COP-16. ICEM Health, Safety, Sustainability Officer Brian Kohler addressed the opening plenary of the AWG-LCA on behalf of trade unions, and emphasized the need for this language.
Throughout the two weeks of COP-16, coordinated by the International Trade Union Confederation’s (ITUC) Anabella Rosemberg, every trade union delegate made efforts to contact members of the negotiating teams to stress the need for this paragraph. Kohler himself spoke to negotiators from Europe, Japan, and the assistant to the Chair of the AWG-LCA, among others. This all-out effort finally paid off: at the last minute, on the last day, it was announced that the text had made it back into the “Shared Vision.”
The final report of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific and Technical Advice, on Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) eligibility as a Clean Development Mechanism (part of the Kyoto Protocol track), presented two options on CCS for consideration by the Parties. In the end, the Parties adopted the more favourable of the two options. Therefore, CCS will be an eligible project activity under the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), provided it complies with fairly stringent risk and safety assessments. This is a positive development for supporters of CCS, including ICEM and many of its affiliates.
As for protecting the earth from disastrous climate change, much remains to be done. Developed countries must be more ambitious in their emissions reduction targets, and although progress was made on the subject of funding, the poorest nations of the world have yet to see a fully adequate finance plan for mitigation and adaptation.
On balance, however, COP-16 did represent a small step forward, and raises hope that at COP-17 next year, a more effective “fair, ambitious, and binding” climate treaty may be reached.
The full list of agreements reached at COP-16 can be read here.