just transition

By Philip Baker and David Campbell - United Steelworkers Local 675, August 5, 2020

We write to support an important economic recovery opportunity that will create jobs, provide tremendous health and environmental benefits to frontline communities, and advance a just transition away from fossil fuels: the accelerated remediation of oil and gas wells in California.

California law already requires that oil and gas operators fully fund the cost of oil and gas well remediation in California.

The job creation from this work is substantial. A recent national study estimated a total of 15.9 total jobs (direct, indirect, and induced) per million dollars spent.

Remediation of Oil and Gas Wells Must be Accelerated in Tandem with a Halt on Permitting New Wells and a Managed Phaseout of Oil and Gas Extraction.

Read the text (PDF).

By Sanya Carley and David Konisky - Nature Energy, August 2020

The transition to lower-carbon sources of energy will inevitably produce and, in many cases, perpetuate pre-existing sets of winners and losers. The winners are those that will benefit from cleaner sources of energy, reduced emissions from the removal of fossil fuels, and the employment and innovation opportunities that accompany this transition. The losers are those that will bear the burdens, or lack access to the opportunities. Here we review the current state of understanding—based on a rapidly growing body of academic and policy literature—about the potential adverse consequences of the energy transition for specific communities and socio-economic groups on the frontlines of the transition. We review evidence about just transition policies and programmes, primarily from cases in the Global North, and draw conclusions about what insights are still needed to understand the justice and equity dimensions of the transition, and to ensure that no one is left behind.

Read the text (PDF).

By staff - Victorian Trades Hall Council, August 2020

With workers and unions leading the transformation of the economy, we will not only help to avoid the worst effects of climate change, it will lead to a more just society in which workers have a much greater share of the wealth they create. This is a moment in time in which we can reduce inequality, increase control over our own working lives, and have our economy work in the interests of everyday people. Without workers and unions playing this leading role, we risk either climate and economic breakdown or a transformation that is authoritarian, gives priority to the interests of capital over workers, and replicates the economic, social and political injustices that characterise the world today.

There are few more important issues facing workers in Victoria than how our economy is restructured and rebuilt in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis to reduce the risks of climate change and to manage the effects of the warming that is already locked in to the climate system.

Climate change affects all workers, but in different ways. Health professionals like nurses, and emergency services workers like fire fighters and paramedics, are on the frontlines of the response to extreme weather and disasters and at the same time managing the pressures of other crises, like COVID-19. Public sector workers must manage everything from fire reconstruction work to welfare support to coordinating pandemic responses, often after years of federal funding cuts. In drought-affected communities, local workers can be hurt by the economic decline caused by lack of water, which has also led to closures of businesses such as dairy farming. Construction workers and farm workers must deal with the increasing number of hot days, often resulting in a downturn in industry productivity.

COVID-19 and its economic fallout have demonstrated that in times of crisis it is far too often women who disproportionally bear the brunt, both in job losses and also as frontline workers acting in response. It has also shown us that crises – whether climate or health related - exacerbate existing inequities, meaning those in insecure work, the low-paid, the disabled, migrant workers and First Nations communities are disproportionately affected. For instance, the link between insecure employment and the spread of the virus is now acknowledged by health authorities and the Victorian Government: workers without paid sick leave are more likely to go to work while sick. This tells us that in preparing for the challenges and likely crises of the future, including those climate-related, the elimination of these inequities and inequalities must be given high priority.

All of us will have to learn how to cope with a changing climate. But managing the economic restructuring that will be necessary to avoid the worst impacts of climate change will be particularly important for workers and unions. Workers and their unions know only too well what happens when individual firms or industries are restructured without workers or unions having a proper say: it’s workers who pay the price.

Read the text (PDF).

By staff - ReImagine Appalachia, August 2020

Appalachians have a long history of hard work, resilience, and coming together to face enormous challenges. Our region is a place of ingenuity. A place where families and neighbors look out for one another.

Now is the time to put our ingenuity to use and imagine a 21st century economy that works for the people in the Ohio River Valley of Appalachia. An economy that is good for working people, communities, our health and the health of our neighbors. One that is grounded in the land and centered on creating wealth locally. One that relies on working people, already skilled in service, industry, trades and farming. One that offers hope to the next generation’s workers—regardless of the color of their skin, ethnicity or gender. And one that does our region’s part to meet the nation’s climate challenge, just as we met the call to provide coal energy to fuel a growing nation a century ago.

Right now, our nation is in crisis. We face the COVID epidemic, a deep economic downturn, extreme inequality, racism, police brutality, and the consequences of a changing climate such as severe storms and flooding. These crises demand from us real, lasting and structural change. It is not a matter of if, but when. When the nation rises to the occasion, people in Appalachia need to be at the table and helping to lead the charge. Together, we can build a vision for the Appalachia we want to live in.

Read the text (PDF).

By staff - Canadian Labour Congress, August 2020

The Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) believes that saving lives, protecting public health, and containing the coronavirus outbreak must remain the federal government’s overriding priority. In the near term, this includes continued income support for individuals unable to work due to COVID-19, as well as proper personal protective equipment, workplace health and safety precautions, and training for workers.

As public health measures permit, fiscal policy measures responding to the recession and unemployment crisis will need to prioritize helping Canadians return to decent jobs. The economic crisis has disproportionately affected low-paid, vulnerable workers in precarious employment, especially women, young workers, newcomers, workers of colour, and workers with disabilities. Accordingly, the plan for economic recovery must be gendered, inclusive, inequality-reducing, and sustainable.

Read the report (PDF).

By Dennis Dougherty, Ray Beck, et, al. - Colorado Just Transition Advisory Committee, August 1, 2020

Coal has played an important role in Colorado’s economy since before statehood, from heating homes and powering industry to fueling railroads and generating electricity. Today, coal is mostly used for electricity in Colorado.

Increasing price competition from natural gas and renewables, along with environmental concerns, has led to a significant decline in the use of coal over the last dozen years. In 2019, Colorado set aggressive goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions that will require major changes in how we fuel our cars, heat our homes, and generate electricity. As a result of these combined factors, the era of coal appears to be coming to an end in Colorado.

The decline of coal has serious implications for the Coloradans who work in the coal industry (mostly in mines and power plants) and the communities where they do this work. Approximately 2,000 coal workers stand to lose their mostly high-paying jobs by 2030, and many communities will lose significant percentages of their local job base and of property tax revenues when mines and power plants close.

Colorado has the opportunity to lead the nation in achieving more constructive outcomes. In 2019, the Colorado General Assembly passed and the Governor signed House Bill 19-1314, which makes a “moral commitment” to a “just transition” for these workers and communities. It established the nation’s first state Office of Just Transition (OJT), and it created a Just Transition Advisory Committee (JTAC) to develop a draft plan for how the state will fulfill this commitment.

Read the text (PDF).

Resolution passed by the American Federation of Teachers, July 31, 2020

WHEREAS, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has stated that current concentrations and ongoing emissions of greenhouse gases will continue to cause increases in global temperatures, warming of the world’s oceans and increases in the average sea level rise for many centuries; that irreversible changes in major ecosystems and the planetary climate system may already have been reached or passed; that ecosystems as diverse as the Amazon rainforest and other natural wildlife and forest reserves across the world have or are approaching thresholds of dramatic change; and that these events will transcend generations; and

WHEREAS, the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas for the purposes of electricity generation and transportation is the primary source of climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions; and

WHEREAS, the World Health Organization reports that rising temperatures and rising seas, as well as diminished air and water quality, lead to significant health risks such as heat-related risks, cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses, vector-borne infection, illness related to contaminated water, loss of shelter and compromised food supplies; and

WHEREAS, there is growing opposition to the negative health and environmental effects of fossil fuel extraction and consumption; coal-specific fossil fuel-dependent regions across the United States have been economically devastated by the shift from coal consumption; and the remaining coal jobs across the country are expected to steadily decline over the coming years; and

WHEREAS, working families, frontline communities, communities of color, low-income communities and other vulnerable populations suffer disproportionately from environmental degradation and climate change events such as extreme hurricanes, wildfire, drought and flooding, extreme heat and the spread of infectious disease; and

WHEREAS, studies show that 13 million Americans could be forced out of their communities and jobs due to climate change by the next century; and,

WHEREAS, hundreds of institutional investors in the United States and abroad have taken steps to divest their dollars from fossil fuel companies; and energy companies may actually pose a long-term risk to pension fund portfolios because there is a risk that governments could regulate oil and coal companies so extensively that their equities are devalued; and

WHEREAS, the International Labor Organization has reported that large economies moving toward greener and more environmentally sustainable transitions could generate up to 60 million new jobs worldwide over the next two decades; and

WHEREAS, the American Society of Civil Engineers has reported that if the American infrastructure investment gap is not addressed throughout the nation’s infrastructure sectors by 2025, the economy is expected to lose almost $4 trillion in gross domestic product, and that these gaps in infrastructure funding combined with climate change pose a potentially serious impact on worldwide water resources, energy production and use, agriculture, forestry, coastal development and resources, flood control and public infrastructure; and

WHEREAS, working collaboratively with industry partners, career and technical education teachers can prepare students for a green economy by developing CTE programs with sustainability and environmental content, and by providing opportunities for students to gain hands-on, project-based experience directly tied to emerging professions and family-sustaining jobs; and

WHEREAS, the Department of Defense is the largest single emitter of greenhouse gases on the planet, and the AFT has repeatedly endorsed the principle of reducing military spending (except for veterans’ benefits) and using the money saved to create millions of jobs in a peaceful green economy, including transitioning many weapons production jobs to peacetime production jobs; and

WHEREAS, private investment for transitioning from fossil fuels has been completely insufficient, and multinational corporate interests strongly oppose public efforts for a just transition, especially public financing and labor protections; and

WHEREAS, working collaboratively with parents, communities and public institutions across the United States, teachers and professors can prepare diverse students to be informed leaders for a just green society by developing curricula and programming that create inclusive democratic spaces for learning and collaboration promoting sustainability, resilience and climate justice; and

WHEREAS, the American Federation of Teachers represents workers from all sectors of the economy and across all demographics who have a significant stake in the development of a green economy that can both slow the crisis of climate change and build an economy and strengthened public sector based on the foundation of a strong labor movement with family-supporting wages, benefits and shared prosperity for all; and

WHEREAS, the labor movement must be at the center of shaping climate policies to include a just transition for workers and communities, including tax-base support for impacted communities, wage replacement and parity for affected workers, retirement protections, partnerships between industry and communities on emerging green industries and jobs, continued access to healthcare, zero-cost education and training, a job guarantee, expanded collective bargaining rights, and prioritizing the needs of historically marginalized communities that have disproportionately suffered from environmental injustice, racism and systemic exclusion from well-paying jobs; and

WHEREAS, emerging studies have begun identifying potential sources of job growth in regions that are experiencing a decline in fossil fuel demand, which can be found through sustainable regional solutions in partnership with economists and industry experts, projected over long periods across generations of workers:

By Catherine Saget, Adrien Vogt-Schilb, and Trang Luu - International Labor Organization, July 29, 2020

A green and inclusive recovery is essential to help confront the climate crisis and build a better future. If we do not act now, the same vulnerabilities that exposed workers and enterprises to the pandemic will expose them to the climate crisis. The ILO estimates that 2.5 million Latin American and Caribbean jobs could be lost to heat stress alone by 2030, affecting particularly outdoor workers in construction and agriculture, and street vendors. The IDB projects that by 2050, climate change damages could cost US$ 100 billion annually to the region.

But the future is not set in stone. As the global economy gradually restarts following the COVID-19 lockdown, now is the time to craft a more inclusive, resilient, and sustainable future. Progress is already being made. The IDB is working with countries to create strategies to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.

The ILO is also helping countries, their workers and enterprises prepare for the consequences on domestic labor markets. In recent years, with Getting to Net-Zero Emissions and Greening with Jobs, our institutions have shown that a green economy comes with job creation and other development benefits.

For this report, we have joined forces to identify where jobs can be created in Latin America and the Caribbean while transitioning to net-zero emissions. We have found impressive potential in sustainable agriculture, and in other sectors including forestry, renewable energy, construction, and manufacturing. This collaborative effort is the first to document how shifting to healthier and more sustainable diets, which reduce meat consumption while increasing plant-based foods, would create jobs while reducing pressure on the region’s unique biodiversity.

Read the text (Link).

By Saul Griffith, Sam Calisch, and Alex Laskey - Rewiring America, July 29, 2020

Total decarbonization of America’s energy system is often portrayed as being inconsistent with economic growth, particularly with respect to job opportunities for those currently working in more traditional energy industries. This report, based on an extensive industrial and engineering analysis of what such a decarbonization would entail, demonstrates that aggressive decarbonization would create, rather than destroy, many millions of well–paying American jobs. These jobs will be highly distributed geographically and difficult to off- shore. The opportunity to create even more jobs by becoming an exporter of clean energy technologies would increase the number of jobs.

Where most studies look at decarbonization in specific individual sectors such as trans- portation, the electricity grid, or buildings — and mostly only on the supply side — we build a model of the interactions of all sectors, both supply and demand, in a rapid and total decarbonization. The maximum speed at which the transition can occur is dictated by the speed at which productive capacity in critical industries is built out. We call this the “mobilization period,” akin to the “arsenal of democracy” mobilization in service of winning WWII. Under our model, this period is followed by a prolonged stretch of deployment at close to 100% adoption rates. After this deployment period, the economy settles into a “new normal state” that provides steady growth, replacement, and maintenance of a 100% clean energy system.

This maximum feasible rate of decarbonization substantially decarbonizes the power, transportation, building, and industrial sectors in the U.S. by 2035. This is commensurate with a global target of limiting warming to between 1.5◦ C/2.7◦ F and 2◦ C/3.6◦ F . Decar- bonizing on this time frame produces around 25 million peak new jobs, tapering off to about 5 million sustained new jobs, in addition to the current jobs supported by the energy industry. While not the principal objective of this study, we also can project that with the right regulatory environment, and while paying good wages for energy sector jobs, we can still predict significantly lower energy costs for consumers, with an average household saving of 1,000–2,000 dollars per year.

Download (PDF).

By Thea Riofrancos and Daniel Aldana Cohen - Socialism 2020, July 26, 2020

Join Thea Riofrancos and Daniel Aldana Cohen for a discussion of the Green New Deal and the future we can build out of our crisis-ridden present. This event is part of the Socialism 2020 Virtual conference. See more at socialismconference.org.