The ITUC works actively with its affiliates in positioning the labour movement in the climate agenda – on the need for a fair, ambitious and binding agreement in the UNFCCC, on emission reduction targets and differentiated responsibilities, on financing climate policies, among others – and on developing a comprehensive strategy for a “just transition” for workers and communities to ensure we all are part of a sustainable, low-carbon economy and benefit from decent and green jobs.
There are no jobs on a dead planet.
We must decarbonise our world by 2050. This requires major emissions reductions and universal access to breakthrough technologies.
Unions want a global agreement implemented on the basis of just transition principles and plans: national and industry/enterprise plans that protect and create new jobs by investing in the necessary industrial transformation.
This is the most significant challenge the world will face in the next thirty years, but we must start now or we will lose the war on climate change with horrendous consequences for all working people and their communities.
The ITUC will work with affiliates to mobilise for a global agreement that frames the possibility of industrial transformation and guarantees a ‘just transition’.
The ITUC affiliates are equally committed to organising the workers in emerging green economy jobs in both the formal and the informal economy.
Climate change left unchecked threatens everyone and will leave whole regions uninhabitable. Extreme weather events with lasting devastation are already destroying jobs and livelihoods.
We have eleven years to stabilise the planet at a 1.5°C temperature rise, yet governments are not taking responsibility to realise their targets. Every government must raise its ambition and determine national development plans, including Just Transition measures to protect workers, their families and their communities. Every employer must have a plan for climate proofing their operations, and Just Transition measures must be at the heart of such plans.
Unions are ready to engage in dialogue at all levels to ensure that Just Transition measures are adequate and to build people’s trust in a process that will realise the ambition we all rely on.
There are no jobs on a dead planet - the alternative is to build good jobs on a living planet.
While it is still technically feasible to avoid a 1.5˚C rise in temperature, behaviour and technologies will need to shift across the board in order to achieve these emissions reductions. Bold climate action can deliver USD 26 trillion in economic benefits through to 2030 (compared with business-as-usual) while generating more than 65 million jobs and avoiding more than 700,000 premature deaths from air pollution in 2030.
Through coordinated actions, unions have put a “Just Transition” approach to climate change in the Paris Climate Agreement and on the political agenda. This has led to the involvement of unions in national and sectoral climate policies.