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Global Climate Jobs Conference: Climate politics racism and refugees
By Rehad Desai, Dr. Claire Cohen, Sarah Eleazar, Zahid Ali, Rehad Desai, and Suda Sim Meriç - Global Climate Jobs, September 19, 2022
combating racism
environmental racism
Global Climate Jobs Network
Cooperation Jackson
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Towards a Public Pathway Approach to Energy Transition
By various - Alternative Information Development Center, August 15, 2022
On Wednesday, July 27th, 2022, representatives of unions and social movements met in Johannesburg to discuss the country's energy crisis. The representatives agreed to form a united front to resist privatisation of the power sector and to propose alternative ways to address both the immediate crisis and the longer-term challenges posed by the decarbonisation of South Africa's energy system. What follows is a work-in-progress statement that captures the discussion and conclusions reached at the end of the meeting:
Statement of the United Front to Address Loadshedding:
We acknowledge the multiple economic and social problems associated with load-shedding (particularly for the working class and poor communities in both rural and urban areas). We agree with President Ramaphosa when he says government must take bold measures to address load-shedding as expeditiously and efficiently as possible. We agree that load-shedding is a national crisis that requires decisive action on the part of the government.
However, we believe that the proposals aimed at addressing load-shedding that have been put forward by government ministries, the private sector, consultancies and think tanks are unrealistic and are extremely unlikely to succeed. These proposals reflect the interests of the Independent Power Producer (IPPs) and their desire to secure subsidies as a means of securing guaranteed returns on investments and to grow their businesses at the expense of Eskom. Their needs also reflect the privatisation designs of the World Bank, the IMF, and the European Commission.
Equally important, the actions proposed by the government will impede South Africa's transition to a low-carbon energy system and expose the country to a state of energy dependency. South Africa has no wind industry and its solar industry is negligible. There is currently no means to produce lithium-ion batteries. South Africa will surrender energy decision-making to multinational companies that produce these technologies.
We believe that it is foolish to entertain the idea that the private sector and market liberalisation can provide a workable alternative to load-shedding. The solution to load shedding and the achievement of a just energy transition in the coming decades depends on a well-resourced national public utility.
electricity grids
investor owned utilities (IOU)
Trade Unions for Energy Democracy (TUED)
South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU)
Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU)
IndustriALL Global Union
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Leaping Backwards: Why is Energy Poverty Rising in Africa?
By Sean Sweeney - New Labor Forum, July 18, 2022
How can the world end energy poverty in the Global South and simultaneously reduce greenhouse gas emissions to fight climate change? In 2021, 860 million people had no access to electricity. [1] Today, a third of all humanity lacks access to reliable power. Roughly 2.6 billion people heat their homes with polluting fuels and technologies, and using traditional stoves fueled by charcoal, coal, crop waste, dung, kerosene, and wood.[2] The majority of families in the Global South are today able to turn on an electric light—and therefore have "access to electricity" for at least some hours in the day—but for many that is as far as it goes. For other basic needs, dirty and perhaps life-threatening energy continues to be the norm.
The urgency of providing energy to the great numbers of people in the Global South who lack it runs headlong into the necessity to divert climate disaster by reducing worldwide carbon emissions. It is this challenge that sits at he center of current debates on "sustainable development." For some years, the standard answer from the climate policy world has been the following: the Global South is well positioned to "leapfrog" the phase of centralized energy and jump feet first into the transition to modern renewables, in the same way as mobile phones have proliferated in the developing world without first having to install traditional land-line infrastructure.[3] Whereas large nuclear, coal, and gas-fired power stations and hydroelectric dams take years to build, by comparison wind, solar, and battery technologies are small, easy to install, and, the argument goes, increasingly affordable. Rural communities without electricity can set up stand-alone "micro-grids," so there is no need for traditional transmission and distribution grids which are expensive and inefficient. The Global South—which refers broadly to Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Pacific Islands, and the developing countries in Asia—is blessed with so much sun and wind, there is no reason why energy poverty cannot be consigned to history relatively quickly.[4]
That is the good news. The bad news is that it is not happening, and there are few signs that it will.
Sean Sweeney
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How can the world end energy poverty in the Global South and simultaneously reduce greenhouse gas emissions to fight climate change? In 2021, 860 million people had no access to electricity. [1] Today, a third of all humanity lacks access to reliable power. Roughly 2.6 billion people heat their homes with polluting fuels and technologies, and using traditional stoves fueled by charcoal, coal, crop waste, dung, kerosene, and wood.2 The majority of families in the Global South are today able to turn on an electric light—and therefore have "access to electricity" for at least some hours in the day—but for many that is as far as it goes. For other basic needs, dirty and perhaps life-threatening energy continues to be the norm.
The urgency of providing energy to the great numbers of people in the Global South who lack it runs headlong into the necessity to divert climate disaster by reducing worldwide carbon emissions. It is this challenge that sits at he center of current debates on "sustainable development." For some years, the standard answer from the climate policy world has been the following: the Global South is well positioned to "leapfrog" the phase of centralized energy and jump feet first into the transition to modern renewables, in the same way as mobile phones have proliferated in the developing world without first having to install traditional land-line infrastructure.3 Whereas large nuclear, coaland gas-fired power stations and hydroelectric dams take years to build, by comparison wind, solar, and battery technologies are small, easy to install, and, the argument goes, increasingly affordable. Rural communities without electricity can set up stand-alone "micro- grids," so there is no need for traditional transmission and distribution grids which are expensive and inefficient. The Global South—which refers broadly to Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Pacific Islands, and the developing countries in Asia—is blessed with so much sun and wind, there is no reason why energy poverty cannot be consigned to history relatively quickly.4
Good jobs and a Just Transition into wind technology
By staff - IndustriALL, June 16, 2022
On 7 June, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), LO Norway and IndustriALL held a second workshop on wind technology as part of the Just Transition and the energy sector initiative. The initiative provides a platform for unions around the world to exchange information on energy transition technologies and the jobs, skills, markets, investments, and emissions related to them.
Workers want good jobs and just transition in the energy sector. This workshop looked at offshore and onshore wind technology, which employers and government see as a potential pathway for oil and gas companies to diversify their assets and bring down emissions. The information is not always easy to get but unions want to see how many jobs there are, when they will come, what kind of jobs they will be, what kinds of skills workers will need for these jobs, and the transition that workers will be faced with.
To get a better view of what the future holds, participants looked at the value chains of oil and gas, and onshore and offshore wind, breaking both value chains down to production, processing, distribution, and end-use (upstream, midstream, downstream).
Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU)
International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC)
Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO Norway)
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South Africa's Coal Miners' Union Calls for a Public Pathway Approach to Energy Transition
By staff - Trade Unions for Energy Democracy, April 5, 2022
At its recent 17th National Congress, South Africa's National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) adopted a bold position in favor of keeping the country's electrical power utility Eskom fully public.
Attended by roughly 750 delegates, the three-day congress — held in Boksburg, South Africa, from March 30th to April 1st, 2022 — adopted a report titled "Just Transition and the Energy Sector." The report declares:
As a union with a long history of internationalism, NUM is today part of a global trade union-led effort to secure a Just Transition to a low carbon future. Once championed by unions, the term just transition has been hijacked by capital and its original meaning has been distorted. It is now being used to advance a global "green structural adjustment" agenda, one that is using the climate emergency as cover to advance privatisation and to dismantle public companies and assets.
In recent years, NUM has worked alongside the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), TUED, AIDC and the Transnational Institute to repel government-led efforts to break up and privatize the national utility Eskom.
National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA)
utility workers
nationalization
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Shifting Narratives and Practices to Achieve Gender Just Climate Transitions
By Abdelrahman Al Tamimi, Erin Tansey, Shehnaaz Moosa, Stefania Barca, Zo Randriamaro, and Dunja Krause - United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, March 15, 2022
eco-feminism
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Workers Can't Wait: Just Transition Now – Building Global Labour Power For Climate Justice
By Sam Mason, et.al. - COP26 Coalition, February 3, 2022
Trades Union Congress (TUC)
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The Green Jobs Advantage: How Climate Friendly Investments are Better Job Creators
By Joel Jager, et. al. - World Resources Institute, International Trade Union Confederation, and The Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, October 2021
As part of their COVID-19 recovery efforts, many governments continue to fund unsustainable infrastructure, even though this ignores the urgency of addressing climate change and will not secure longterm stability for workers.
Our analysis of studies from around the world finds that green investments generally create more jobs per US$1 million than unsustainable investments. We compare near-term job effects from clean energy versus fossil fuels, public transportation versus roads, electric vehicles versus internal combustion engine vehicles, and nature-based solutions versus fossil fuels.
Green investments can create quality jobs, but this is not guaranteed. In developing countries, green jobs can provide avenues out of poverty, but too many are informal and temporary, limiting access to work security, safety, or social protections. In developed countries, new green jobs may have wages and benefits that aren't as high as those in traditional sectors where, in many cases, workers have been able to fight for job quality through decades of collective action.
Government investment should come with conditions that ensure fair wages and benefits, work security, safe working conditions, opportunities for training and advancement, the right to organize, and accessibility to all.
International Labour Organisation (ILO)
green urbanism
Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU)
North America's Building Trades Unions (NABTU)
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Renewable Energy companies seen as barriers to a successful public energy transition
By Elizabeth Perry - Work and Climate Change Report, September 8, 2021
Recent issues of New Labor Forum include articles promoting the concept of energy democracy, and bringing an international perspective. In "Sustaining the Unsustainable: Why Renewable Energy Companies Are Not Climate Warriors" (New Labor Forum, August), author Sean Sweeney argues that renewable energy companies "are party to a "race to the bottom" capitalist dynamic that exploits workers – citing the example of alleged forced Uyghur labour in China-based solar companies, and the offshoring of manufacturing for the Scottish wind industry. He also argues that "large wind and solar interests' "me first" behavior is propping up a policy architecture that is sucking in large amounts of public money to make their private operations profitable. They are sustaining a model of energy transition that has already shown itself to be incapable of meeting climate targets. In so doing, these companies have not just gone over to the political dark side, they helped design it."
The theme of the Spring New Labor Forum was A Public Energy Response to the Climate Emergency , and includes these three articles: "Beyond Coal: Why South Africa Should Reform and Rebuild Its Public Utility"; "Ireland's Energy System: The Historical Case for Hope in Climate Action"; and "Mexico's Wall of Resistance: Why AMLO's Fight for Energy Sovereignty Needs Our Support" .
The author of Sustaining the Unsustainable is Sean Sweeney, who is Director of the International Program on Labor, Climate & Environment at the School of Labor and Urban Studies, City University of New York, and is also the coordinator of Trade Unions for Energy Democracy (TUED). In August, TUED convened a Global Forum, "COP26: What Do Unions Want?" – with participation from 69 unions, including the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC), the UK Trades Union Congress (TUC), the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF), Trade Union Confederation of the Americas (TUCA), the UK's Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), and Public Services International (PSI). Presentations are summarized in TUED Bulletin 111, (Aug. 18), and are available on YouTube here .
International Transport Workers Federation (ITF)
collectivization
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