Group_5_US-China Trade War to understand the trade
Unions, climate change and the great inaction - Sean Sweeney
1. 1.Trade Unions for Energy Democracy (TUED)
1.TUED and Global Labor’s Climate Politics
2. A global, multi-sector, initiative to advance
democratic direction and control of energy
GLI International Summer School
July 2014
Sean Sweeney, Ph.D. and Lara Skinner, Ph.D.
3. Why TUED?
1. “Business as Usual” = Civilizational Crisis
2. The Energy Transition is NOT happening
3. Solutions Exist – And Unions Can Play a Crucial Role
6. Extreme Energy on the Rise
Tar Sands Oil
Shale gas “fracking”
Mountaintop removal
and surface coal mining
Deep sea / Artic oil
drilling
7. Energy Expansion, Not Transition
Investment in Clean Energy v Conventional Capacity, 2004- 2011, $BN
Fossil fuel investment is calculated from EIA and IEA data. Renewable energy
investment includes asset finance and small-scale projects, but excludes large hydro.
Sources: EIA, IEA, Bloomberg New Energy Finance
9. More Fossil Fuels, More Emissions ≠ Energy
Equity
Share of people without electricity access for developing countries, 2008
10. Under Attack- Workers and Communities
•Many workers lack rights &
union representation
•Health & safety issues
•Production up,
•employment down
•Companies closing union
operations, reopening non-
union.
12. The U.S. supports a voluntary ‘pledge and review’
approach – the ‘Copenhagen Accord’
“Our view in the
U.S. is that it (a
binding climate
agreement) is not
a necessary thing
to happen right
now .”
Todd Stern, U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change, Bankok, April 7, 2011
14. ons and environmental groups walk out of the Warsaw talks….
Commit to build a ‘peoples-led climate movement’
15. The Path Forward for Unions
Unions Need a Climate Program that can:
Effectively address the climate crisis and the ecological emergency
Build trade union and working class power
Challenge capitalist political economy and the ‘growth imperative’
Assert social ownership and democratic control over key sectors
16. Time for a class-based and independent trade union approach
“Rio+20 is about scaling-up
and accelerating the Green
Economy transformation
already manifest in most if
not all countries across the
globe.”
-- Remarks by Achim Steiner to the
Second Trade Union Assembly on
Labour and the Environment,
“Rio+20”, June 12, 2012
18. Energy: Developing a Framework for Action
•Resist – Business as usual, “carbon lock in” and the extreme energy agenda
•Reclaim – Take back what’s been privatized, de-marketize public companies
•Restructure – Deploy renewable energy to scale under social ownership and
democratic control
19. Immediate Goals of TUED: connect the struggles,
build a global community, develop strategies and alternatives