Canada

By Lliam Hildebrand, et. al. - Iron and Earth, September 2016

Iron & Earth, a Canadian non-profit organization led by skilled trades workers with experience in Canada’s oil industry, is developing a Workers’ Climate Plan. This preliminary report describes how Canadacan become a leader in renewable energy, and a net exporter of renewable energy products, services and technology, by harnessing the industrial trade skills of current energy sector workers. A growing number of oil and gas trades people support a transition to renewable energy so long as it provides a just transition for current energy sector workers. By utilising Canada’s existing energy sector workforce, organizations and infrastructure, Canada can accelerate the transition to renewable energy, decrease the cost, and make Canada’s renewable energy sector globally competitive.

Throughout September and October, Iron & Earth will continue to reach out to energy sector workers over the phone and in person to speak about the Workers’ Climate Plan in more detail. Iron & Earth is consulting with a range of energy sectors take holders in partner ship with the Alberta-based EnergyFutures Lab in order to devise a set of recommendations based on worker demands. This will informan expanded Workers’ Climate Plan which we will release in November 2016 ahead of The 22nd session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 22). In this preliminary, abridged version of the Workers' Climate Plan, we share insights from current energy sector workers for the consideration of the Working Group on Clean Technology, Innovation and Jobs, as they compile their reports for the ministerial tables in September 2016.

Read the report (PDF).

By Benjamin Israël, Kim Perrotta, Joe Vipond, Leigh Allard, and Vanessa Foran - Pembina Institute, September 2016

With the phase-out of coal power announced by the provincein November 2015, Albertans stand to avoid significant health impacts caused by coal pollution. By extension, afurtheraccelerated phase out of coal power facilities would both hastenand amplify those avoided health impacts.The health benefits and costs savings in avoided health outcomes would be significant, and should be consideredin the government’s planning of the coal phase-out from now to 2030.

While the provincial government has announced a coal phase-out, they have not yet released a transition schedule. This analysis assesses the relative benefits of an accelerated stepwise transition away from coal, as proposed by the Pembina Institute,versus the back-loaded phase-out that otheranalyses haveposited.

In 2012, when the federal government finalized its coal regulations that —in effect —reduce electricity generation from coal plants, Environment Canada(as it was called at that time)estimated considerable health impacts would be avoided, usinghighly regarded modelling techniques. Logically, thesesignificantbenefits from reducing coal necessarily mean that the use of coal for power generation causesconsiderablehealth impacts in the first place.

By extrapolating the health benefit results from Environment Canada’s analysis, this report highlights the full impact of coal-fired generation in Albertaand indicates attainable benefits associated with the province’s coal phase- out.When the federal government weakened its proposed coal regulations back in 2012 in response to lobbying from some coal generators, allowing coal plants to continue unabated longer than first proposed,it left health savings on the table. Alberta can now grasp these savings byaccelerating our transition away from coal-fired electricity.

Read the report (PDF).

By staff - Canadian Labour Congress, July 28, 2016

The biggest challenge of our generation could also be the biggest opportunity of the century for economic growth and job creation. The Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) rejects the notion that there is a fundamental conflict between the economy and jobs and environmental sustainability. Good economic and job creation policies must address all the indicators of a good quality of life — the economy, jobs, equality and the environment. Canada has an unprecedented opportunity to create new and better jobs as part of a planned transition to a much more energy efficient and environmentally sustainable economy. There is an urgent need for labour to address not only climate change with solutions which can be deployed quickly but also to seize the opportunity to create new and better jobs and ensure that climate change policies will not increase inequality in Canada.

The CLC supports a green jobs strategy and an environmental economic development strategy which places manufacturing and trade policies at the center of the climate change agenda. The CLC looks forward to any opportunity to work in collaboration with government to build support for effective and concrete measures to avert catastrophic climate change while ensuring that the path forward also builds a stronger economy with good jobs.

The CLC will work and collaborate with employers, educators and governments to minimize the costs of adjustment for workers, establish and collaborate on governance of Just Transition programs to support those workers who would be displaced by climate change or by climate change policies and mitigation measures. We believe the lynchpin of meaningful sustained climate action is retraining, re-employment and relocation for affected workers.

On behalf of the 3.3 million members of the CLC , we want to thank you for affording us the opportunity to present our views. The CLC brings together Canada’s national and international unions along with the provincial and territorial federations of labour and 130 district labour councils whose members work in virtually all sectors of the Canadian economy, in all occupations, in all parts of Canada.

Download PDF Here.

By various - CUPW, Leap Manifesto, et. al., March 2016

Many think of Canada Post as a place to mail a care package, buy stamps or pick up the latest commemorative coin.

Some consider the post office past its prime: the last decade has seen efforts to cut, devalue and undermine this quintessentially public service. These moves have been fiercely resisted by people across the country.

What if our cherished national institution, with its vast physical infrastructure and millions of daily human interactions, could offer us something completely different? What if the post office could play a central role in building our next economy — an economy that is more stable, more equal, and less polluting?

Just Imagine...

• Charging stations for electric vehicles at post offices
• a renewable-powered postal fleet that connects farms to dinner tables
• Door-to-door mail carriers checking in on seniors and people with mobility issues as well as delivering locally-produced food and other services
• Post offices as community hubs for social innovation, connecting climate-friendly businesses to customers
• Postal banking services that provide small towns and Indigenous communities with inclusive financial services – like loans to families underserved by commercial banks
• Public-interest financial services that fuel the green energy transition in urban, rural and Indigenous communities We want a 100% renewable economy that addresses inequality, puts power in our hands and improves our lives.

Our post office can deliver it.

Read the report (PDF).

By Elena Mora - Left Streamed, September 29, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

At the beginning of the federal election campaign, Toronto Centre NDP candidate and respected author Linda McQuaig stated a simple fact: “a lot of people recognize that a lot of the oil sands oil may need to stay in the ground if we're going to meet our climate change targets.” This sparked a corporate media backlash, accusing her of being ideologically-driven, anti-Alberta and anti-jobs.

The science is clear: if Canada continues to extract the tar sands, it will be game over for the climate. To avoid climate catastrophe we need to keep the vast majority of tar sands in the ground. In addition to their impact on the climate, the tar sands disproportionately affect Indigenous communities - from Dene, Cree, and Metis communities at ground zero of the tar sands mega project, to Aamjiwnaang First Nation surrounded by the tar sands refineries of Chemical Valley. The transport of tar sands bitumen through pipelines and by rail also threatens people, communities, and waterways right across the country. At a time of both an economic and ecological crises, investments in the tar sands waste resources that could be creating green jobs and infrastructure, and empowering local communities. While solutions to the climate and ecological crises exist, they have been all but absent in the federal election campaigns.

By various - Global Climate Jobs Network, September 2015

We have to stop climate change, and we have to do it quickly. To do it, we will need 120 million new jobs globally for at least twenty years.

There are now campaigns in several countries fighting for mass government programs for climate jobs. Most of them started with union support, and all of them are trying to build an alliance of unions, environmentalists, NGOs, and faith groups.This booklet has been produced by several of these campaigns, because we want people in other countries to do the same.

The first half of this booklet explains the idea of climate jobs in broad strokes. But each country is different, so the second half of this booklet sketches what climate jobs would mean in South Africa, Norway, Canada, New York State, and Britain.

Read the report (English PDF) | (French PDF) | (Spanish PDF).

By Megan Devlin - Rabble.Ca, July 5 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

The March for Jobs, Justice and the Climate filled the streets of downtown Toronto today, demanding a justice-based transition to a green-energy economy.

A press release sent after the Toronto march pegged the number of marchers at over 10,000 including celebrities Jane Fonda and David Suzuki.

The thousands in Toronto were not the only people to take part this weekend. Events for jobs, justice and the climate were held in cities and towns across Canada.

In Toronto, speakers at the march called out the myth of the choice between the economy and the environment as they pushed for a new, green energy economy. 

"They are saying we do have to choose between the environment and the economy -- that is a false choice," said Fonda, who came to Toronto to support the march. "In fact, renewable energy and doing away with the fossil fuel-based economy will create more jobs, more justice and more democracy."

By Megan Devlin - Rabble.ca, May 22, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

It was chilly in the shadow of the TD building at King and Bay Thursday morning as about 40 members of a coalition of grassroots organizations raised their red placards at the launch for the March for Jobs, Justice and the Climate.

The march will happen July 5 -- on the eve of the Pan American Climate Summit of the Americas -- but it was clear that the movement has already gained support.

The launch criticized the fossil fuel industry's power and called for a justice-based transition to a clean-energy-based economy.

"We're ready for the next economy," Naomi Klein said in her address. "Canadians are clearly getting tired of the fossil fuel roller coaster."

The march is a collaboration among a range of stakeholder groups including 350.org, Idle No More, No One is Illegal, GreenPeace, oil divestment activists from the University of Toronto and Canada's largest private sector union, Unifor, which represents many of Alberta's energy workers.  

By staff - Toronto350, April 10, 2015

The governments of the world — including the governments of Canada, the United States (U.S.), the United Kingdom (U.K.), China, Brazil, and the 27 European Union (EU) members — have agreed we should avoid raising global temperatures to more than 2 ̊C above pre-industrial levels.1 This is the threshold at which the major governments of the world have agreed that climate change becomes “dangerous”. In 2009, an article in Nature warned that failing to constrain warming to below 2 ̊C “would threaten the ecological life- support systems that have developed in the late Quaternary environment, and would severely challenge the viability of contemporary human societies”. In the Summary for Policymakers from their Fifth Assessment Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) explains:

Without additional mitigation eforts beyond those in place today, and even with adapta- tion, warming by the end of the 21st century will lead to high to very high risk of severe, widespread, and irreversible impacts globally.

Based on hundreds of thousands of years of evidence on how the climate responds to greenhouse gases (GHGs), we can calculate the total quantity of all fossil fuels we can burn, adding the carbon they contain to the atmosphere, while still giving ourselves a good chance of avoiding a 2 ̊C increase.7 To do so we must keep future GHG pollution to no more than 565 billion tonnes (gigatonnes) of carbon dioxide (CO2).8 At the same time, we know that burning the world’s proven reserves of coal, oil, and natural gas would produce 2,795 gigatonnes of CO2 — nearly ive times as much as it would be safe to burn.91011 The University of Toronto (U of T) can play a role in helping humanity stay within these planetary limits by choosing to sell its investments in fossil fuel companies.

Download a copy of this resolution here (PDF).