More than 50 unions representing millions of workers worldwide have added their voice to the growing chorus calling for strong climate action.
The trade union action is an initiative aimed at mobilising support for an ambitious climate treaty to be negotiated next year when the United Nations will hold a summit in the French capital, Paris.
The Unions4Climate action, launched at the World Congress of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) in Berlin, calls for a deal that is good for the climate and that drives an industrial transformation and creates jobs.
Sharan Burrow, General Secretary of the ITUC said: “Threats to jobs and livelihoods include the threat of climate change.
“For unions it is simple. There are no jobs on a dead planet,” Ms Burrow said.
According to the ITUC, strong climate action could create 48 million new jobs in 12 countries in Germany up to 400,000 new renewable energy jobs have been created in just two years.
Unions will use the Unions4Climate to push for ambitious commitments from governments, discuss plans for industrial transformation and to debate the best ways to secure workers decent, green jobs.
Significantly, the new campaign was backed by a number of national trade union groups, including the United Kingdom’s Trades Union Congress, Spain’s CCOO and CUT Peru.
ITUC said that its research had shown that low carbon economic strategies could deliver large numbers of well-paid jobs.
Ms Burrow added that unions needed to take steps to ensure a “just” transition to a low carbon economy that does not disproportionately harm some countries and sections of society.
“We watched governments fail the planet and their people in Copenhagen and the same corporate interests want to see failure in Paris,” she said of the UN’s long-running climate negotiations.
“The mission of the trade union movement to ensure jobs, rights and social equality requires that we embrace the cause of a just transition towards sustainable development, a transition that must start now.”
The trade union endorsed statement specifically calls for an “industrial transformation” capable to delivering steep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
It added that the focus of the latest round of UN negotiations had to be on mobilising investment in clean technologies.
“We have played our role in UN negotiations and fought and won commitments to ‘Just Transition’,” it said.
The full ITUC report is here