Sunak's dangerous backtracking on policies for net zero, in a craven attempt to win votes for an unpopular Tory government, is a disaster for the planet and does nothing to tackle the cost of living crisis. Every trade unionist should challenge and join campaigners in opposing this.
Sadly there is nothing new in backtracking on climate pledges from the Tory party in government. But we should expect different from trade trade union leaders.
This summer has shown the devastating impacts of climate change. Several thousand lives have been lost in Libya as a result of the most serious climate event to date, yet senior trade union figures are arguing for more fossil fuel extraction in the name of defending jobs.
Both GMB General Secretary Gary Smith and Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham want the Labour Party to reverse its decision not to grant new licences for extracting oil and gas from the North Sea.
Gary Smith claims āWeāve cut carbon emissions by decimating working class communitiesā. This is nonsense. Mining communities were destroyed for economic reasons and to break one of the best organised trade unions in Britain. It was not to reduce carbon emissions. British pits were considered uneconomic and were replaced with cheaper imported coal. The years of austerity and falling real wages account for what has happened since.
Allowing uncontrolled climate change would be the ultimate assault on working class communities in Britain and across the world. That is why we urgently need to transition away from fossil fuels in a way that protects workers rather than the profits of the fossil fuel companies.
The science is absolutely clear. The more carbon and other greenhouse gases are pumped into the atmosphere, the greater global warming, and the more devasting the impact on the climate and our lives.
We already know that climate events happen with little or no warning and can have a catastrophic consequences for those impacted. People can lose not just their jobs, but also their homes and even their lives.
Far from defending jobs, demanding new licences for another 30 years of even more carbon emissions actually puts jobs at greater risk of coming to an abrupt end, either from climate events or their economic consequences.
Our Climate Jobs report, 'Building a Workforce for the Climate Emergency' shows that to successfully transition away from fossil fuels it will be necessary to recruit, train and deploy many more workers than those currently working in fossil fuel related industries. It will take time to do this so we need to start now.
Instead of pandering to the interests of the fossil fuel industry and its Government supporters, the trade union movement must use its full weight to demand that employers and Government urgently create and invest in the climate jobs and the just transition that we need to secure the future of us all.
If you want to campaign for urgent climate action within the trade union movement as well as jobs, then join us.
We're supporting the Extinction Rebellion call-out for the 'BIG ONE' mobilisation, involving more than 200 groups and organisations gathering around Parliament 21-24 April.
It's clear that the multiple crises we face are interlinked: irreversible climate breakdown, spiralling cost of living and poverty, and attacks on fundamental rights to protest and strike. So let's make sure this message is heard with plenty of trade union banners and placards on the action!
Friday 21 April
'People's pickets' outside government departments, with many different groups coming together to organise these. CACCTU will be at the "Department for Energy Security and Net Zero" (DESNZ), along with other groups including Fuel Poverty Action, Stop Rosebank, Just Stop Oil and Biofuelwatch and more.
Activists will be there from 7am to allow engagement with workers as they arrive. The 'pickets' will continue throughout the day until 6pm, though key times are likely to be12 noon to 2pm when workers are coming and going, and activists coming for the day are most likely to be around.. At 3pm there will also be an 'opening ceremony' in Parliament Square.
PCS Union are supporting the action but will not be asking members to come out during core hours, only at lunchtime. Note that "People's Pickets" are to be inclusive and accessible, and won't block access to the buildings.
Some trade unionists will be planning to attend other picket sites with their local groups or specific campaigns. There is a map showing the locations of the different government departments.
Saturday 22 April
The trade union hub will be opposite the south end of the Houses of Parliament, just past 'Old Palace Yard' where the health, education and science hubs are based. CACCTU will be there along with XR TU and other trade union climate groups. We'll have speakers and discussion from 11-1pm, about how trade unions and climate activists can and must work together, the solutions we need, and those we don't. Please come and join us if you can!
11am - Welcome! Trade unions and climate activism
Daniel Randall, RMT and XRTU
11.10 - The changes we need
Climate jobs - Suzanne Jeffery, CACCTU; Avoiding greenwash - Ellen Robottom, CACCTU; Offshore workersā demands for a just energy transition - Rosemary Harris, Platform; Cumbria coal mine and green jobs - Hazel Graham; plus open discussion
11.40 - Climate/green networks in trade unions
NEU Climate Change Network - Paul Atkin; Equity For a Green New Deal; Unite Grassroot Climate Justice Caucus - Clara Paillard; plus open discussion and networking
12.10 - Democracy - workers and climate
Workers Assemblies - Finlay Asher, Safe Landing; Green reps (tbc)
12.25 - Organising locally (speakers and open mic)
Carol Mills, Eastbourne Trades Council, plus other speakers
From 1pm CACCTU will be joining other trade union climate activists for a Trade Union bloc on the march for biodiversity ā please bring your TU flags and banners.
Call to action for Unite members: the deadline for branches to submit motions to be debated at the July policy conference is 31st January.
The recently formed Unite Grassroots Climate Justice Caucus is seeking to get the same motion submitted by as many branches as possible. These were chosen with the aims of keeping the motions simple and focusing on the top priorities that emerged during Caucus meetings. Caucus members are asked to choose one of these two motions.
Each Unite branch can submit one motion only (unfortunately Unite Community branches cannot submit motions, though in some cases they may have influence with their local geographical or sector-based branches). Your Branch Secretary should have circulated the information including Conference forms for motions. If not, you still have time to contact them and ask for a Branch meeting to take place before the conference deadline in January, to select a motion. Branch members would have to have enough notice to consider the motion (and any other motions on the table) before agreeing what to submit to conference.
No new fossil fuels motion: Currently Unite's policy is to support continued fossil fuel extraction and is using Carbon Capture and Storage as the justification for doing so. This motion aims to push for the end of support for new extraction but does not mention existing production at this stage because the motion would be lost given the number of workers Unite represents in fossil fuel industries. But, if won, this would be a start. Motion text
Workers Assemblies in key sectors motion: Not many of the Caucus members work in industries such as fossil fuels, chemicals, automotive or aviation. However, if you do, you may want to push for this motion to be sent to conference as it argues for Workers Assemblies to take place in all sectors to move forward the Climate Justice & Just Transition agenda. Motion text
Unite members can join the Climate Justice Caucus here.
You can also get in touch to inform the caucus about motions being submitted via CACCTU on climatetradeunion@gmail.com
Unite Grassroots Climate Justice Caucus is an unofficial group of members of Unite the Union who want to link up and organise at grassroot level to improve how Unite approaches Climate Justice.
We have written, along with the Greener Jobs Alliance and the Climate Justice Coalition, to key public service unions striking for decent pay and conditions to express our solidarity. Many CACCTU supporters will have already expressed solidarity to local union branches in a similar way, if not, we encourage you to do.
For more about encouraging climate activists to support the strikes, see here
Below is our letter, in a general form which can be adapted for particular disputes.
As trade unionists and activists campaigning on the climate crisis, the organisations represented in this letter wish to express our unequivocal solidarity with your dispute. We stand with you in your fight against the cost of living crisis and against threats of further austerity policies which would bring even worse suffering.
The main headline from COP27: after twenty-seven years of climate negotiations, progress on actually cutting emissions is as painfully slow as ever. Meanwhile the chance of staying under 1.5C of warming is rapidly disappearing, and the impacts of climate breakdown are devastating communities around the world.
The Egyptian government saw hosting the summit as an opportunity to enhance prestige, but the international attention also shone a spotlight on its human rights abuses, with a crackdown on protesters ahead of COP27. The most powerful voice at the summit was arguably a man who who was not even in Sharm el-Sheikh, but in prison. Alaa Abd El Fattah, a British-Egyptian pro-democracy activist and writer, who has been in prison for most of the past nine years, escalated his ongoing hunger strike to stop drinking water as COP27 began.
Due to the restrictions imposed on protest in the streets of Egypt , for the first time ever, climate activists marched within the Blue Zone (governed by UN rules). Their slogan, "We have not yet been defeated" echoed the the title of Alaa Abd El Fattah's book of essays, You Have Not Yet Been Defeated. Solidarity climate protests around the world called for the freeing of Alaa and the many other political prisoners in Egypt, that there could be no climate justice without human rights.
Loss and Damage fund finally established
COP27 did produce one big win for countries on the frontline of climate breakdown. After decades of blocking by rich nations, a loss and damage fund was agreed for countries most affected by climate change to cover devastating impacts like flooding and drought. In the run up to COP27, negotiations had been needed to even get loss and damage onto the agenda. This fund is a significant win for powerful advocacy by climate-vulnerable countries and the global climate justice movement, and one which was fought over all the way.
But the new loss and damage fund is, for now, empty. The track record of rich nations on climate finance is not encouraging. Thirteen years ago in Copenhagen, rich nations pledged to provide US$100 billion a year to less wealthy nations by 2020, to help them adapt to climate change and develop sustainably. That promise was broken, not just falling short on the total amount, but also in the substance of what has been provided, which has overwhelmingly been given as loans only, rather than grant funding.
A family-friendly weekend festival May Day for the Planet Friday-Monday, with events themed around the climate crisis.
Saturday 30th April
Plymouth
March and festival for Peace and Climate Justice - assemble 12pm Plymouth Guildhall, followed by a climate festival with live music, stalls and speakers at the Leadworks, Rendle Street PL1. Details
Norwich
March and Rally, with the theme 'Fighting for a Sustainable Future'. Assemble from 11am, City Hall Facebook event
Lancaster
Assemble Dalton Square, 11.30. March with music at 12pm, 1pm, rally Dalton Square.
Sunday 1st May
London
Assemble Clerkenwell Green from 12pm, march leaves 1pm. Rally in Trafalgar Square from 2.30pm. Climate bloc meeting outside Marx Memorial Library, Facebook event
Manchester
Assemble at 11:15am in St Peter's Square, march at 11:30am to Sackville Gardens for 1pm for the festival of speeches, live music, food, drink and stalls. Bring banners, flags, family, workmates and friends. Or join the RMT Trans Pennine Express pickets at Piccadilly Fairfield Street from 9am onwards, marching at 11am to join the May Day crowd in St Peter's Square.
Bath
Rally for a Just Transition, 11am Kingsmead Square. Speakers, activities for children, music. Then from 1pm at The Bell, Walcot Street: Seize the Day performing live; Syrian veggie and vegan buffet.
Monday 2nd May
Salford
May Day march and rally from noon, meeting in Bexley Square to march to Sacred Trinity Church.
Waveney
May Day People's Festival: debates, music and art, 12-5, United Reform Church, Lowestoft Road North NR32 1HB
The scientists of the IPCC (the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) have just published their latest report, on the damage that climate breakdown is causing to humans and ecosystems. They warn that the time left to act is running out.
There could hardly be a worse time for the messages in this report to catch public attention while all eys are on bombed Ukrainian cities and fleeing refugees.
Even for those of us who think we have a good understanding of the dangers of climate change, this report is important, setting out starkly the peril we are in.
Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary General, spoke out at the report's launch:
"I have seen many scientific reports in my time, but nothing like this. Today's IPCC report is an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed leadership."
"The facts are undeniable. This abdication of leadership is criminal. The world's biggest polluters are guilty of arson of our only home.
But according to current commitments, global emissions are set to increase almost 14 per cent over the current decade. That spells catastrophe. It will destroy any chance of keeping 1.5 alive."
The world's most eminent scientists and academics in these fields - cautious, fact-checking, balancing evidence - are backing up what climate justice advocates have known and have been saying for years.
We're running out of time
There is more than a 50% chance that even in the most optimistic scenarios for cutting emissions, global average temperatures will soon rise by 1.5Ā°C or more (compared to temperatures before humans started burning fossil fuels for energy).
If the planet heats up by more than 1.5C, impacts such as wildfires, mass mortality of trees, drying of peatlands, and thawing of permafrost are likely to release additional greenhouse gases, making it even more difficult to lower global temperatures again. Some impacts will be irreversible.
How bad things get depends on what we do now and in the immediate future to cut emissions. It also depends on adaptation - taking action to protect people and ecosystems from risks which are now unavoidable (such as higher sea levels). With every fraction of a degree of global warming the risks and related losses and damages escalate.
Climate change impacts are more severe than estimated in previous IPCC assessments. The last time the IPCC reported on impacts and adaptation was back in 2014, and since then there is more evidence on the harms that climate change is already causing.
Climate change is hurting people now - especially in the Global South
Approximately 3.3 to 3.6 billion people live in contexts that are highly vulnerable to climate change
Climate change is contributing to humanitarian crises. Climate and weather extremes are increasingly driving people to leave their homes, with small island states disproportionately affected.
In a rich country like the UK, people should not have to choose between warm homes and decent food. But with a combination of rising gas prices, a failure to insulate homes or build enough renewable energy, and a deeply unequal society after a decade of austerity and benefit cuts... this is the reality for many.
The short answers to these questions are simple: in the face of escalating climate breakdown, COP26 did little to shift our trajectory away from catastrophe, away from business-as-usual and towards curbing fossil fuel use. Rich countries have refused to step up and meet their obligations to those who have least to cause the climate crisis.
In the words of Greta Thunberg, more āblah, blah, blahā.
And as for what comes next, of course we go on fighting to keep the chance of staying beneath 1.5C alive.
The long version? After two weeks with a flurry of announcements, greenwash, struggles over seemingly minor details of text, and anger from civl society massed on the streets of Glasgow, itās worth unpacking some of the details of what was really agreed, or not. How does the jargon translate into real world outcomes, literally of life and death? In these details we can see beneath the media spin and glossy announcements the brutal realities of power, money, and neocolonialism.
1.5C āon life supportā
As the window of opportunity is closing to stay within 1.5C heating and avoid the worst climate catastrophe, where are we left as COP26 ends?
Under the Paris climate deal, nations had to submit updated voluntary commitments to climate action (known as nationally determined contributions or NDCs) before the talks. Unsurprisingly, these are generally lacking in substance or urgency. Many lack clear deliver plans and delay meaningful change until after 2030. Climate Action Trackerās useful analysis finds that even with all new pledges for 2030, we will still emit roughly twice as much in 2030 as required for 1.5C.
They estimate if all current pledges for emissions cuts by 2030 are met, this gives only a 50% chance of staying below 2.4C.
Of course 1.5C itself is no āsafe levelā. Many areas have already experienced devastating wildfires, floods, hurricanes and heatwaves at 1.1C. These, in combination with longer-term impacts such as drought, disproportionately affect countries who have done least to cause the problem and have fewest resources to deal with them.
Wendy Smith is a Unite member, member of CACCTU and one of the founders of Norfolk Campaign against Climate Change.
People have been shocked at the recent news of deaths from extreme heat and flooding across the globe. Three of the worldās wealthiest men have been racing into space in an effort to find new sources of profit. Meanwhile our government here seems determined to rush the UK into a return to pre-pandemic business as usual. There has never been a more urgent need to fight for effective action in the face of climate catastrophe. The COP26 talks in Glasgow in November present our world leaders with a vital and timely opportunity to deliver more than vague targets and future promises.
The Campaign against Climate Change Trade Union group (CaCCTU) will be launching this autumn the eagerly-awaited update to their groundbreaking pamphlet, āOne Million Climate Jobsā, first published in 2004. At the heart of this new report is a core model for a new public service ā a National Climate Service ā that can get the job done by seeing to the integration of training, redeployment, planning and the interface between sectors (e.g., between industries and energy, or the complex planning needed to integrate and balance public transport).
The Climate Jobs campaign argues we need a sustainable transformation of construction, transport and power among other sectors. Several unions organise workers in these industries and, in order to win the changes we need, these unions should get behind these demands, building support for a transition of the economy and for massive investment in well paid jobs which tackle the climate emergency. In particular, Unite, one of the biggest unions in the Britain, can play a crucial role. Unite is in the process of electing a new General Secretary.
