Brussels, 30/11/2007
The European trade unions and their counterparts from other parts of the world will be present as observers at the United Nations Conference on Climate Change, to be held in Bali from 3 to 14 December. The conference will be launching negotiations on a global and ambitious agreement for the period after 2012.
In its roadmap for the Bali conference, the ETUC stresses the urgency of global action to combat climate change. "We have ten years to reverse the situation", declared ETUC Confederal Secretary Joël Decaillon. "Climate change is a threat to the means of subsistence of millions of people in the developing countries, where effective social protection systems are often also lacking. In Europe, as in other developed regions, labour intensive sectors are already being affected by the change in climate conditions. Two years on from Hurricane Katrina, the situation of thousands of people who have lost their jobs has still not been brought back to normal."
The European trade unions hope to see the negotiations on a new global post-Kyoto agreement get under way very quickly. The new agreement must be ambitious and fair and must include a new dimension on employment.
The ETUC insists that the developed countries must set a binding target of at least a 30% reduction in their emissions by 2020 and that the emerging economies must undertake to control their emissions with the assistance of international cooperation.
The ETUC also calls for a better intermeshing of climate change and employment policies. "This aspect has been grossly underestimated so far in international climate change negotiations. Yet the necessary changes cannot be made without involving workers and their representatives. They also require policies aimed explicitly at developing the jobs and training that correspond to the new low-carbon goods and services and managing the restructuring operations that could be triggered by a rapid transition to a low-carbon economy," explained Joël Decaillon.
With that aim in mind, the ETUC proposes that the new post-Kyoto agreement include a module on a "fair transition for employment" comprising:
- the introduction of a fund, managed and financed in large measure by the public powers, to address the problem of adaptation; all stakeholders, including the trade union organisations, should be consulted on use of the fund;
- a systematic assessment, within the framework of negotiations with the social partners, of the potential impact on employment and qualifications of the positive and negative effects of climate change, adaptation measures and mitigation efforts;
- the promotion of public investments in energy-efficient goods and services, such as the energy renovation of housing and public transport, and in R&D on renewable energy and clean and energy-efficient technologies;
- the introduction of criteria for respect for internationally recognised labour, social and environmental standards for the approval of clean development mechanism (CDM) and joint implementation (JI) projects, so that these may contribute to decent work within the meaning laid down by the International Labour Organisation (ILO);
- transitional programmes for displaced workers, including advice and training measures and financial assistance;
- the promotion of social dialogue between employers and unions on the consequences of climate change .
The ETUC also urges trade ministers, who will be meeting in Bali to review climate issues, to examine the means that would make it possible to ensure fair global trading conditions for the energy-intensive industries of countries that implement the Kyoto Protocol, in the absence of equivalent carbon constraints in the other big producer countries.
For more information:
Sophie Dupressoir, [email protected], +32 4 73 65 34 23