publications

By staff - Fossil Free California, June 2022

As the impacts of climate change begin to wreak havoc on our bisophere, the fossil fuel divestment movement has gained remarkable momentum. Globally, 1,500 institutions representing over $40 trillion in assets have already committed to some level of divestment from the fossil fuel industry.

Despite over a decade of pressure from their members, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) continue to invest billions in the fossil fuel industry on behalf of their beneficiaries. Studies have shown that if CalPERS and CalSTRS had divested from fossil fuels in 2010, they would have generated an estimated additional $17.4 billion in returns by 2019.23 So why do California’s public pension funds remain invested in the fossil fuel industry?

CalPERS and CalSTRS claim they are engaging with the fossil fuel industry as stakeholders to mitigate climate change by affecting the conduct of oil, gas, and coal companies. However, a review of their 2022 proxy votes reveals that their shareholder engagement efforts are not only ineffective—they’re undermining climate action.

Download a copy of this publication here (PDF).

By Kevin Knobloch, Tim Steeves, and Sarah Clements - Labor Energy Partnership, June 2022

In March 2022, the LEP brought together an extraordinary group of leaders and experts for a private, virtual event on to workshop a series of four white papers related to building a robust domestic supply chain to support the emerging offshore wind (OSW) industry in the United States and abroad.

The workshop, moderated by Kevin Knobloch, distinguished associate at the EFI and president of Knobloch Energy, built on the discussion and conclusions of the first LEP OSW roundtable held in March 2021.

The aim of this new workshop was to explore and discuss the issues raised in the four white papers (across three focused discussion sessions) and help shape recommendations for actions and policies that can help create a robust domestic OSW supply chain.

This summary report seeks to capture the essence and any points of consensus of the rich discussion. The workshop was conducted under a modified Chatham House Rule to encourage candor in which it was agreed that this summary report will not attribute quotes to specific speakers by name or affiliation.

By Dave Effross - Labor Energy Partnership, June 2022

How do we make offshore wind (OSW) power competitive? Systems need to be created and put into place. This means we need not only energy infrastructure but also specialized construction and supply infrastructure. The University of Delaware’s Special Initiative in Offshore Wind (SIOW) has calculated estimates of what such a system would result in for the United States, based upon 32,352 megawatts (MW) of installed capacity in the Northeast from 2021 through 2030.

This paper estimates the volume/nature of material, equipment, infrastructure, and workforce that will be needed to support a 30 GW offshore wind industry by 2030—the national goal established by the Biden Harris Administration—while developing some perspective on the needs of a 110 GW industry projected by the Administration by 2050.

By David W. Cash - Labor Energy Partnership, June 2022

This paper attempts to analyze the existing offshore wind (OSW) supply chain and value chain capacity and gaps in U.S. manufacturing, vessels, ports, workforce development and standards. It further identifies opportunities and constraints in meeting goals of equity as the domestic OSW sector develops across all these dimensions. As the Biden administration notes, the development of the OSW sector offers the prospect not only to reduce emissions at scale, but also to seize the opportunity to create jobs along the value chain, create union and high-wage jobs, reduce U.S. sector uncertainties and drive equity, especially in overburdened and vulnerable communities.

By Liz Burdock, Ross Gould and Sam Salustro - Labor Energy Partnership, June 2022

Accelerating the growth of the U.S. offshore wind supply chain is critical to achieving national and state-level energy goals and will require a national strategy to succeed. This paper, titled Advancing Policy Measures to Drive Development of the Domestic Offshore Wind Supply Chain, assesses how current policies impact potential supply chain businesses and what is needed to help them retool or gain the capabilities needed to build out the U.S. offshore wind industry and compete in the global market. Secondary market forces, such as federal leasing processes and transmission capacities, play an important role in efforts to accelerate supply chain development and are discussed. This paper is informed by specific and general conversations with Network members actively working to build out a sustainable and competitive offshore wind supply chain. These insights are augmented by research into current global and European policies impacting the United States market and into comparable renewable energy technologies and their successes or failures in growing a domestic supply chain.

By Will Foster and Riley Ohlson - Labor Energy Partnership, June 2022

This paper assesses the opportunities and challenges for developing a fleet of Jones Act-compliant vessels for installation, maintenance and service of offshore wind infrastructure in the U.S., in consultation with shipbuilding unions.

Stimulating commercial shipbuilding activity is critical to facilitating OSW deployment while demonstrating the potential for this deployment to support and grow good manufacturing jobs.

Arguably, the greatest challenge facing sustained OSW development is neither technical nor financial but political. Many American workers, particularly those in industries tied to fossil fuels, are deeply skeptical of the prospects of a just transition and the fundamental ability for renewable energy production to support middle-class jobs.

By Sarah Clements and Angie Kaufman - Labor Energy Partnership, June 2022

The U.S. offshore wind energy industry is on the rise. As a climate solution with opportunities to create and support good-paying jobs, the offshore wind industry demonstrates the symbiosis between labor and the energy transition. 

This fact sheet was developed by EFI and AFL-CIO under the Labor Energy Partnership. It will help you understand the basics: what offshore wind energy is, why the East Coast has more potential, what the Biden Administration has pledged, and how to build the industry sustainably and equitably. 

By Sotiria Theodoropoulou, Mehtap Akgüç, and Jakob Wall - European Trade Union Institute, June 2022

This paper assesses how well national recovery and resilience plans (NRRPs) aim at jointly tackling the social and climate/environmental challenges of recovery from the crisis and the transition to a net zero carbon socioeconomic model. Drawing on the conceptual frameworks proposed by Mandelli (forthcoming) and by Sabato et al. (2021) on how economic, social and green objectives can be integrated in general, and more particularly in the EU Recovery Policy framework, this paper goes a step further and examines NRRP documents as well as secondary evidence from, among others, the assessments of the European Commission. We develop some indicators which operationalise, at ‘bird’s eye view’ level, the balance between policy interventions aiming at social and green objectives and which explore how well they promote the concept of ‘just transition’. Moreover, the paper looks in more detail at the plans of France, Greece and Germany to provide more qualitative evidence on how these countries have articulated their proposed policy interventions to have a joint impact(s) on both green and social objectives.

Our analysis suggests that planned spending from the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) is tilted in favour of green transition objectives relative to social objectives. This might be a reason for concern about a new imbalance at the expense of the EU’s social dimension, beyond that already in existence with regard to the economic dimension; namely that there is an imbalance between the environmental/green dimension and the social one. Such a new imbalance, however, will also depend on a Member State’s capacity to cushion the impacts of the green transition beyond the use of RRF funds.

By Jim Stanford. - Center for Future Work, May 26, 2022

A new report from the David Suzuki Foundation takes a deep dive into the employment gains that could be achieved through the rapid electrification of Canada’s economy, driven by the expansion of sustainable power generation and infrastructure. The new report, “Shifting Power: Zero-Emissions Electricity Across Canada by 2035”, estimates that 75,000 net new jobs would be created by the expansion of clean electricity generation and use over a 15-year period. This would contribute substantially to the attainment of Canada’s net-zero objectives, as well as to strengthening employment outcomes for Canadian workers as the economy shifts toward sustainable energy sources.

Centre for Future Work Director Jim Stanford provided a supplementary analysis for the report, addressing the economic and employment opportunities associated with decarbonized electrification. He notes those benefits would occur through several complementary channels:

• Jobs in developing and operating renewable generation systems (including solar, wind, geothermal and hydroelectric power). Construction of these projects will create hundreds of thousands of person-years, with thousands more ongoing jobs in operation and maintenance.
• New work in expanding and upgrading the electric grid. Major investments will be required to upgrade transmission facilities, install modern control and regulating equipment and prepare the grid for the more complex and variable power distribution requirements associated with dispersed renewable generation.
• Manufacturing of capital equipment and other material inputs to renewable generation projects. With appropriate value-added industrial strategies to enhance Canada’s industrial footprint in these growing industries, thousands of permanent jobs would be created manufacturing wind turbines, solar power equipment, transmission equipment and materials, and other capital inputs to electrification.
• Installation and maintenance of new equipment that uses electricity in various industrial and consumer applications — everything from residential heating systems to electric vehicles to large industrial power systems.
• Jobs in new industries attracted to Canada by the availability of clean, reliable and competitive electricity. Canada’s abundance of primary renewable electricity resources would position us at the forefront of the global transition to sustainable electric energy. That will stimulate interest and investment by industrial firms and financial investors from around the world.

Overstated and misleading warnings that shifting away from fossil fuel use will inevitably cause major job losses and dislocation have already been disproved by the progress in decarbonizing electricity that has already been made. Stanford notes that reliance on fossil fuels in electricity generation in Canada has already fallen by one-third since the turn of the century – yet the electricity generation and distribution industry has created 10,000 net new jobs over that same period. And since renewable energy sources, in general, are more labour-intensive than fossil fuels, this continuing shift can be expected to produce more net job gains in the years ahead.

Jim Stanford’s full commentary for the Shifting Power report is posted here. For more details, please see the Suzuki Foundation’s full report, “Shifting Power: Zero-Emissions Electricity Across Canada by 2035”

By staff - IndustriALL, May 18, 2022

Today, manufacturing, mining and energy trade unions, under the umbrella of industriAll European Trade Union, are launching their Just Transition Manifesto.

As Europe gets ready to implement the Green Deal and the measures agreed in the Fit for 55 package, 25 million industrial workers in Europe potentially face restructuring and job losses due to the green transformation of our industries - exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis, digitalisation, trade and market developments and a volatile geopolitical situation.

The manifesto is industrial workers’ call to policymakers across Europe to ensure a transition to a green economy that is fair to ALL workers, and that does not destroy but preserves and creates good quality jobs. They want a transition that is anticipated, managed and negotiated with workers for every aspect that concerns them.

To achieve this, we need a comprehensive Just Transition framework that provides guarantees for adequate resources, is based on effective policy planning, promoting and strengthening workers’ rights, and involves trade unions through intense social dialogue.

Our manifesto therefore calls for:

1. An industrial policy fit for ambitious climate goals and good quality jobs.
2. Adequate resources to fund the transition.
3. Stronger collective bargaining and social dialogue to negotiate the transitions.
4. A toolbox of workers’ rights and companies’ duties to anticipate and shape the change.
5. Tackling new skills needs and a right to quality training and life-long learning for every worker to support the Just Transition.