during the Rio +20 talks in 2012 in Rio de Janeiro. There was a big meeting of the trade unions, an international assembly, where the main position of the European trade union movement was that we should support the green capitalists against the ’bad’ capitalists, and that we should be supportive of green job strategies. You could summarize their program in three two-word expressions: green jobs, just transition, and decent work. It was a minimum program. It never addressed corporate power, the problems of the commodification of nature, or the extension of capitalism into nature.

Now, at that meeting, which I consider a historic turning point for the international trade union movement, the proposals were met with extreme anger from unions from the global South. Indigenous organizations related tothe labour movement said: "No! We have to defend the commons, we have to develop the public sphere, and we have to struggle for control over key sectors, among them energy.”

Trade Unions for Energy Democracy came out of that meeting. We convened a follow-up meeting in October 2012, which was addressed by one of the top leaders of the climate science community, James Hanson. This meeting occurred two weeks before Hurricane Sandy hit the Northeastern United States and killed (at least in the New York City area alone) more than 50 people. The climate was imposing itself on the meeting. We fortunately missed the disaster by two weeks, but the message was clear: climate change is here, and we need a plan of action to deal with it.

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