Trade union priorities for the negotiating text of the UNFCCC

Despite the prevailing context of worsening global economic and financial crisis, over the course of 2009 governments must reach an agreement on climate change to succeed the current Kyoto Protocol; an agreement that will put our world on a path to protect our societies, their environment and the generations to come.

The Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP) is affiliated to the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) which represents 170 million workers through its 312 affiliated organizations in 157 countries and territories. We are writing to convey to you the trade union position for these crucial negotiations, as well as trade unions’ specific demands aimed at improving the social and labor dimension of the climate change negotiating text. We urge you to support the proposals it contains during the negotiations which will take place during the remaining part of this year, beginning in Bonn, Germany (10-14 August) and up to the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) in Copenhagen, Denmark (7-18 December 2009), as they would both advance the interests of all countries worldwide and contribute to addressing many urgent challenges posed by climate change and climate change measures.

Trade unions have made a commitment to support strong and ambitious greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction targets in developed countries, combined with effective action for achieving GHG emission reduction or controlled increases to bring about low carbon development in developing countries. We call for adaptation strategies to be well-funded and to target vulnerable communities, and for research & development and deployment of new green technologies to be scaled up. We believe this is a crucial time to seize the opportunity for repairing and rebuilding national economies on the basis of socially and environmentally responsible investment that can create jobs, stimulate economic growth, and reduce GHG emissions.

Both these potential benefits and the employment challenges ahead have started to be considered in the current negotiations. In our view the Copenhagen agreement needs to signal to all countries and stakeholders that its signatories are mindful of its social and economic impacts and that it proposes a strategy for addressing them, in particular with respect to the damage caused by climate change, the right to development in a carbon-constrained world and the need to transform job losses into new green job opportunities. The latter is particularly important in view of the current economic crisis.

Therefore, the TUCP supports the call for:

1. Ensuring that the new agreement contains a call for “Just Transition” as it appears in the current draft, under paragraph 4 of the Negotiating Text.

In addition, concrete elements of this “Just Transition” framework need to be mainstreamed in the different sections, such as consultation, social protection, vocational training, green jobs creation, etc, aimed at protecting the most vulnerable from climate change risks and from the consequences of climate change adaptation or mitigation measures.

2. Ensuring that the next agreement makes specific mention of employment and income.

The UNFCCC has a mandate regarding social and economic measures related to climate change; however, there is a need to specify the need for addressing income and employment, in particular regarding flexibility mechanisms, adaptation strategies, financial mechanisms and policies against deforestation.

3. Including the promotion of consultation and dialogue with all stakeholders, including trade unions, at the international, sectoral, national and local level, as means for fostering and speeding up implementation of effective and employment-sensitive climate change policies.