Shifting towards reliable, accessible and sustainable energy is essential for humankind to improve its working and living conditions, while preserving the environment.
Governments must cooperate with workers and employers to improve our capacity to develop renewable energy and ensure efficient access for all. It is also urgent that governments end all subsidies for fossil fuels and invest these resources in sustainable energy infrastructure and the fight against energy poverty.
This shift is within most countries’ reach: all national climate plans must include measures about creating decent and climate-friendly jobs in the energy sector, with just gender-responsive transition measures based on social dialogue.
But the poorest countries lack the capacity to do all of this. That is why trade unions call for more international climate finance to support renewable energies in these countries, together with robust accountability mechanisms for sustainable investments.
TRADE UNIONS’ PRIORITIES FOR SDG 7
- Recognise access to energy as a human right1 and ensure universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services, by implementing democratic, inclusive and gender-responsive energy policies that respect and promote human and labour rights.
- Tackle the increasing phenomenon of energy poverty through the development of renewable capacity and efficient transmission systems which bring energy to all, as well as by supporting households facing energy insecurity.
- Implement just transition industrial and sectoral policies and investment plans based on timely social dialogue, skills development, the protection of labour rights, and the creation of decent and climate-friendly jobs in renewable energy sectors, and across all traditional and emerging economic sectors.
- Introduce gender-responsive just transition measures related to energy in countries’ national climate plans with the effective participation of social partners, as established by the ILO Guidelines for a Just Transition.
- End wasteful government subsidies to fossil fuel companies and act to prevent their profiteering while ensuring the protection of households against energy poverty.
- Step up international climate finance to support renewable energy production in developing countries, ensure engagement with key stakeholders including workers and affected communities on the amount, form and oversight of financing, and establish accountability mechanisms for sustainable and “green” investments, to avoid greenwashing and ensure that all labour rights are respected and all investments are measurably climate-friendly.
- Accelerate the energy transition, substantially increasing the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix, meeting IPCC science guidance on emission reduction allowances needed to meet the 1.5°C target.
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