The second week of COP25 started today; and the year 2019 quickly draws to a close. Time, I have noticed, seems to make less and less sense as I get older.

Despite the pessimism that I often display, it cannot be denied that the 25th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change shows some positive signs. People and parties are talking seriously about the climate crisis who couldn't be bothered, or actively denied it, as recently as five years ago. Greta Thunberg arrived on Friday and the youth movement she started is having a huge impact. Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets to demand action. There is no doubt that the negotiators inside the COP process are aware of all of this.

Today was set aside for a Trade Union Strategy day on Just Transition for Climate Action. The trade union movement is committed to making climate action central to its mission – for truly, there are no jobs on a dead planet. Just Transition is the way forward. Discussions included how to work with other civil society organizations, the role of public ownership, challenging the neoliberal narrative, and more.

Pepe Álvarez Suárez – Secretario General UGT and Unai Sordo Calvo – Secretario General CCOO, welcomed the trade union delegates to Spain and set the scene. Everyone expressed their solidarity with the Chilean people, and particularly its trade unionists, in the face of the current repression. The trade union delegation considers the Chilean Presidency of COP25 to be illigitemate. Michelle Bachelet Jeria, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and former President of Chile, addressed us on the importance of grounding climate action in human rights. Her speech was especially relevant given the present situation in her home country. Asad Rehman of War on Want spoke on the relationship between the climate crisis and human rights abuses, and challenged the trade union movement to step up and show leadership in building global solidarity for action and justice.

IndustriALL Global Union assistant general secretary Kemal Özkan spoke at today’s meeting and delivered a powerful message on how IndustriALL is demanding a Just Transition as part of its overall strategy on Sustainable Industrial Policy, and using tools such as social dialogue, Global Framework Agreements, union networks, ILO meetings, policy and guidance documents, and campaigns to make its points.

Other speakers included Unions Joaquin Perez Secretario General USO, Ludovic Voet Confederal Secretary ETUC, Jose de las Morenas de Toro (UGT), ITUC’s regional coordinators, Tara Peel (CLC), David Boys (PSI) and Samantha Smith (ITUC Just Transition Centre). 

I will speak tomorrow at a side event on Just Transition for Climate Action. The fight continues!

On Friday, a protest march demanding climate action was organized in Madrid. Trade unions took an active part in it. The organizers, Ecologistas en Acción, claimed more that 500,000 people participated. Greta Thunberg, the teenage climate activist who launched the "Fridays For Future" movement, said at the march that

“change is not going to come from the people in power, it’s going to come from the masses.”

The voice of youth have often been the most powerful at these talks, and now more than ever it is clear that a global movement of youth activists will not be silenced.

The climate march in Madrid was led by indigenous peoples from Latin America, to highlight the shame of Chile reneging, at the last minute, on its promise to host the talks – and blaming its citizens rather than the actions of the Chilean government.

The main discussions of the Subsidiary Bodies have apparently reached agreements on technology transfer, research and observation, but continue to debate several other issues: common time frames, agriculture, transparency, and of course emissions trading. Some of these will be taken up by the ministerial level delegates who are mostly arriving this weekend.

There seems to be a problem reaching an agreement on the seemingly mundane topic of the common time-frames for Nationally Determined Contributions. I had thought that this was settled in Paris, at five years. I suspect that this entire debate is malicious and in bad faith, being continued by countries that want to postpone action.

Meanwhile, a typhoon is actively wreaking damage in the Philippines. Typhoons and hurricanes are “heat engines” – they draw their energy from warm ocean water. The warmer the water, the more energy they can acquire. Warming oceans resulting from climate change are making extreme weather events both more frequent and more destructive.

This COP was also supposed to be the COP that focused more intently on oceans and polar ice. As well as the impacts already being felt by wildlife and indigenous peoples, these regions hold the keys to understanding whether we are at risk of crossing a dangerous climate “tipping point” from which we will not easily be able to return.

A tipping point is a change that could put us rather suddenly into a completely different climate reality. Think of an egg in a bowl. If I slightly tilt the bowl, the egg will roll towards one side; but if I make the bowl upright again the egg will return to the bottom of the bowl. However, if I tilt the bowl too far, the egg will roll out of the bowl and crash to the floor. Now, if I make the bowl upright again, the egg will not magically return to the bowl and re-constitute itself. It has shifted to a completely different state from which it cannot return.

It is strongly suspected by scientists that climate tipping points exist that we are not considering the risk of. One example (among several being examined) is methane frozen as methane hydrates in permafrost or at the bottom of polar oceans. If the climate warms just enough to suddenly release vast quantities of methane to the atmosphere in a short time, that would trigger a devastating tipping point.

However, climate tipping points are not the only worry.

Trade unions believe that there are social tipping points as well. Anger resulting from inequality, injustice, violations of human rights and the destruction of decent work and living standards – and the destruction of the environment as experienced by individuals – can also reach a tipping point. Mass public discontent could erode public support for climate action, or depending on the circumstances, harden public demands for it. Political leaders should be wary.

The Trade Unions for Energy Democracy (TUED) group had an off-site side event today. I could only attend part of it. IndustriALL shares TUED’s concerns that the present system is broken and has not yet delivered the needed systemic changes. The energy system is however changing, and will be radically transformed, over the next few years. Whether under public ownership or not, a Just Transition for workers, their families, and the communities and cultures that they are part of, must be guaranteed.

I have written a few times about the difficult discussions surrounding Article 6 – which implies carbon markets. The most powerful lobby group on this topic is the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) whose members include banks and investment companies, energy companies, industrial companies, and others. Shell is one of the lead organizations within IETA. While an emissions trading rulebook could have clear benefits for the environment, it is obvious that companies such as Shell would benefit greatly as well, by being able to use emissions trades to offset their business-as-usual. This is not necessarily a bad thing if it is done right, with a rulebook that enforces respect for human rights and ratchets emissions downwards rapidly – but it could be very bad if the rules are not carefully written.

Finance discussions continue – I think I have written this statement on just about every blog entry at just about every COP that I have attended. The amounts under discussion, while certainly large, are trivial next to the global military budget, or to the bailouts received by the financial sector in 2009, to pick two examples. To repeat, any resistance on the part of developed countries to fully funding finance for adaptation and loss and damage – following the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities – is a question of priorities and political will, not capacity.

As week one of COP25 drew to an end, all Parties were under pressure to produce final reports before the political level of discussions begin next week.

The COP President held an information update session for today for observer parties. Our Chilean colleague took the opportunity to remind her of Chile’s violations of human rights, and questioned her legitimacy to steer the COP. The President made a perfunctory reply about Chile’s respect for human rights but also the rule of law, as if to imply that the protestors were lawbreakers. In fact her responses to other questions were largely uninformative, as well.

Discussions continued in several areas, including Article 6. Several thorny issues remain to be settled as of my last information. The rules of the “international transfer mitigation outcomes”, which means emissions trading –  or a “carbon market” must respect human and labour rights. A positive sign is that a number of countries are now in agreement that the principle of respect for human rights is an essential feature of any market mechanism.

In yesterday’s blog post I tried to explain the complex structure of the COP25 discussions. The danger inherent in this complexity is that overall progress can be difficult to detect below the many layers of seemingly busy discussions.

The reasons for this are not hard to understand: in a multilateral exercise, the need to seek consensus in an conference where work streams and subcommittees seem to multiply, takes a lot of time.

Unfortunately, we have little time left to make progress on the problem of climate change.

Greta Thunberg, the youth climate activist, arrived today, and a protest march for climate action is scheduled for this evening.

Friday of week one is as good a time as any to reflect on the integration or intersection of several forces. Knowing that IndustriALL Global Union has done a lot of work on climate change, Just Transition, sustainable industrial policy, Industry 4.0, and the future of work, I have been asked questions about the relationship between these topics. These topics are actually quite closely related in some ways.

The future world of work will certainly be transformed by the need to decarbonise the economy, but changes are simultaneously being driven by the range of advanced and disruptive technologies being rapidly introduced in our workplaces. Indeed, these drivers of change, and others such as changing demographics and the shifting political environment, cannot be fully separated. While changing technologies will be fundamental to solving climate change, particularly in the energy sector, it is once again the potential social impacts that are being ignored. It is principally up to trade unions to make this point.

Decarbonisation of industry, along with digitalization, the “internet of things”, artificial intelligence, advanced semi-autonomous robots, 3-D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology – all of these techniques and more, sometimes labelled the Fourth Industrial Revolution or Industry 4.0 – will deliver greater productivity. This is not in doubt, because if these technologies did not promise increased productivity there would be no reason to adopt them. This means fewer hours of labour to produce the same goods or services, with the potential for increased leisure time, more opportunities for self-fulfilment and creativity, better access to the workplace for women and traditionally disadvantaged groups of workers, safer healthier and more fulfilling work. 

Why then are workers, globally, instead experiencing worse and more precarious jobs, “gig” work, zero-hour contracts, poorer working conditions, reduced real income, demands for raising the age of retirement, long working hours, short vacations, and resistance to even such basic demands as maternity and paternity leave? Why are trade unions under relentless attack? Why are we creating a surveillance culture, a culture of fear and hate, instead of a sense of community and a culture of happiness?

It is because so long as the only driving force for companies to adopt these technologies is to cut costs and increase profits, all will suffer save those few who own the technologies. The introduction of disruptive new technologies must be people-centric rather than profit-centric, guided by sustainable industrial policies – public policies in the public interest – created via real and meaningful social dialogue. To navigate these changes we need a guarantee of a genuinely Just Transition that leaves no-one behind.

Change is coming. If we are not at the table to jointly direct these changes, we’ll be on the menu.

Thursday of Week 1 means that most technical papers have been presented at the various working groups, and serious negotiations are beginning. To recap, the importance of COP25 is that the initial 5-year commitments under the Paris Agreement will be reviewed and renewed next year. We want decent jobs and we don’t want to be victims of the transition. That’s why we want Just Transition firmly embedded in as many of the new Nationally Determined Contributions that will be brought to COP26 next year, as possible.

IndustriALL frequently stresses the importance of social dialogue. For the Paris Agreement to succeed, it is important to have social dialogue in the development of policies, and especially the Nationally Determined Contributions. We need to be at the table, and not simply on the menu. The COPs have evolved considerably towards a multilateral approaches that increasingly welcomes dialogue with non-state stakeholders. But to achieve good results, trade unions must be united in our demands. We do not want any worker left behind in the coming transformations.

SBSTA and SBI Chairs meeting:

I had the opportunity to directly question the Chairs of both the Subsidiary Body on Scientific and Technical Advice (SBSTA), and the Subsidiary Body on Implementation (SBI). On behalf of the global trade union movement I asked for clarification on the commitment to Just Transition and human and labour rights. The Chair of the SBSTA gave a very encouraging response that indicated that he understood the importance of our issues and considered them essential for a good outcome.

Response Measures

I also attended a meeting of the Response Measures group, and a side event on Just Transition. The side event was encouraging, the Response Measures meeting was less so, seeming to be mired in trivia and technicalities and unable to get at the core issues.

Carbon Capture

IndustriALL affiliate, the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, in partnership with the International CCS Knowledge Center, held a well-attended information session with a video on carbon capture and sequestration.

Human Rights

In other news, young Indigenous Peoples succeeded in winning movement on incorporating human rights into Article 6 discussions, at least at this stage in the discussions. It  should not even be necessary to remind the negotiators of the importance of human rights, as the UNFCCC is a United Nations body, human rights should be a given.

Appendix: Alphabet Soup and COP25

Yes, an appendix on a blog entry. This is an unusual, if not unique, event!

I was asked regarding one of my blogs, to clarify the relationship between Just Transition, Response Measures, subsidiary bodies, and other COP25 work.

The short answer is, “it’s complicated”.

COP25 is a confusing network of different work streams, subsidiary bodies, committees, and reports, organized under the direction of a large number of international and national organizations, each with an acronym that is rarely spelled out in full. Worse, the list is different each year making it difficult to keep track of them. Many of these events and reports take place concurrently, which means that a delegate must pick and choose where to observe or participate. Some of the work overlaps, and some Parties to the Convention try to shoe-horn their pet issues into discussions where it should not really belong.

Just Transition, being in the preamble of the Paris Agreement, can legitimately be discussed anywhere and everywhere in the COP, and this is happening. However, it is mainly the joint property of two subsidiary bodies: the Subsidiary Body on Scientific and Technical Advice (SBSTA), and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI). These are the two groups whose Chairpersons I was able to question today.

Under the overall governance of the SBSTA and SBI, the work stream on Response Measures (or Response Measures Forum) is a stream of discussions that is charged with looking at: economic diversification and transformation; Just Transition and Decent Work; assessing and analyzing the impacts of response measures; and facilitating the development of tools and methodologies to assess the impacts of response measures.

Some of this Response Measures discussion is quite positive; but some has tilted somewhat towards an attempt to win compensation by resource-rich countries for potentially losing some of their market for oil or coal. Fortunately, this is not a view that is gaining much traction. We are closely monitoring it.

However the Response Measures discussion on Just Transition is far from the only place where Just Transition is being discussed.

Article 6, which I have mentioned a couple of times in previous blog posts, is about market mechanisms, taken mainly to mean emissions trading schemes. This relates to Response Measures in a way, but Article 6 has its own working group under the Subsidiarity Body on Scientific and Technical Advice. However, there have been suggestions to use revenues generated by an emissions trading scheme to fund Just Transition measures, which might bring it back into the discussion on Response Measures.

Confused yet?

For those trying to decipher reports on what is going on at COP25, here is a list of some of the more important definitions and acronyms.

COP25

To start with, COP25 means, in full, the 25th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

BINGO

Business and industry non-governmental organizations.

Carbon market

A popular (but somewhat misleading) term for a trading system through which countries may buy or sell units of greenhouse-gas emissions in an effort to meet their national commitments. Other greenhouse gases are treated as “carbon-dioxide equivalents” based on their relative greenhouse effect power. Note, that an emissions trading scheme does not yet exist under the Paris Agreement – that is why Article 6 is a focus of intense discussion.

Carbon sequestration

The process of removing carbon from the atmosphere and depositing it in a reservoir.

CMA

Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement. All States that are Parties to the Paris Agreement are represented at the CMA, while States that are not Parties participate as observers. The CMA oversees the implementation of the Paris Agreement and takes decisions to promote its effective implementation..

CMP

Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol. Yes, it still exists.

Common but Differentiated Responsibilities

This is a phrase from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which identifies that industrialized countries have contributed much more to our present crisis than developing countries, and therefore should have a greater share of the responsibility for it.

COP

Conference of the Parties. The supreme body of the Convention. It currently meets once a year to review the Convention's progress.

IGO

Intergovernmental organization.

IPCC

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Established in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the UN Environment Programme, the IPCC surveys world-wide scientific and technical literature and publishes assessment reports that are widely recognized as the most credible existing sources of information on climate change. The IPCC also works on methodologies and responds to specific requests from the Convention's subsidiary bodies. The IPCC is independent of the Convention.

Katowice Committee of Experts on Impacts of Implementation of Response Measures (KCI)

This Committee was created at COP24 to produce a report for the Response Measures discussions.

Least Developed Countries (LDCs)

The world's poorest countries. The criteria currently used by the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) for designation as an LDC include low income, human resource weakness and economic vulnerability. Currently 48 countries have been designated by the UN General Assembly as LDCs.

Loss and damage

At COP16 in Cancun in 2010, Governments established a work programme in order to consider approaches to address loss and damage associated with climate change impacts in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.

Mitigation

In the context of climate change, a human intervention to reduce the sources or enhance the sinks of greenhouse gases. Examples include using fossil fuels more efficiently for industrial processes or electricity generation, switching to solar energy or wind power, improving the insulation of buildings, and expanding forests and other "sinks" to remove greater amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

MRV

Measurable, reportable and verifiable. A process/concept that potentially supports greater transparency in the climate change regime, and fundamental to the credibility of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC)

NDC

According to Article 4 paragraph 2 of the Paris Agreement, each Party shall prepare, communicate and maintain successive nationally determined contributions (NDCs) that it intends to achieve. Parties shall pursue domestic mitigation measures, with the aim of achieving the objectives of such contributions. 

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs)

Organizations that are not part of a governmental structure. They include environmental groups, research institutions, business groups, and associations of urban and local governments. Many NGOs attend climate talks as observers. To be accredited to attend meetings under the Convention, NGOs must be non-profit.

Party

A state (or regional economic integration organization such as the European Union) that agrees to be bound by a treaty and for which the treaty has entered into force.

Subsidiary body

A committee that assists the Conference of the Parties. Two permanent subsidiary bodies are created by the Convention: the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA). Temporary subsidiary bodies may also be created.

Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI)

The SBI makes recommendations on policy and implementation issues to the COP and, if requested, to other bodies.

Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA)

The SBSTA serves as a link between information and assessments provided by expert sources (such as the IPCC) and the COP, which focuses on setting policy.

TUNGO

Trade Union related non-governmental organizations. IndustriALL Global Union, and the International Trade Union Confederation, are examples of TUNGOs.

At the trade union morning caucus meeting, delegates heard an impassioned speech about what is going on in Chile. The speaker described how Chile’s past history of military dictatorship is returning to haunt the country, saying “the sons of Pinochet” have once again taken control of the country. Chile is described as a rich country but the richness is being appropriated – privatized – by a very small, and greedy, elite wealthy class. Meanwhile, despite the wealth of natural and human resource possessed by Chile, many parts of the country have no access to safe water or electricity, and wages are not keeping pace with the cost of living. Inevitably, protests against the worsening conditions have broken out.

The way in which the government has chosen to deal with the protests, which have been peaceful, is inexcusable – with some 27 people killed and many wounded, including blinded by being struck with rubber bullets. It is shameful that the government of Chile continues to hold the prestigious post of Presidency of the COP (Ms. Carolina Schmidt Zaldivar, Minister of Environment of Chile is COP25 President) despite having reneged on its promise to host the event and having had to rely on Spain to pick up the pieces. Chile should immediately resign that position in favour of some nation that has earned it.

As for the COP25 process itself, Wednesday brought an initial stock-taking of climate action. In the context of stocktaking, it is clear that insufficient action has been promised, and even less has been accomplished. The COP President arranged for additional scientific input via a virtual meeting of science ministers, but in reality it is not more science that is needed, the science is already pretty clear. What is needed is more ambition.

Response measures are a big area of discussion, and within the COP universe, it is under the umbrella of response measures that Just Transition programs are found. It is early to tell whether the response measures discussions will be productive. The reporting the Katowice Committee of Experts on the Impacts of the Implementation of Response Measures (KCI), which covers also the impact of Just Transition measures, was not immediately “welcomed”, that is formally endorsed – to use the terminology of the COP. This is worrying but the importance of this failure is not yet clear to me. I am hoping it is a temporary glitch.

Regarding Article 6, addressing voluntary measures (market mechanisms, including emissions trading schemes, mentioned in previous blog posts, see links below) there is more difficulty. While a good agreement would help achieve the Paris goals, a badly worded agreement could be worse than no agreement at all, if it allows nations to conceal emissions in a poorly-defined and non-transparent emissions trading scheme, for example.

Trade unions are also monitoring the issue of climate finance – the long-promised global climate fund is still under-resourced. Finance can be an important agent of change, while lack of finance can be an insurmountable obstacle, particularly in developing countries.

CAN, the Climate Action Network (Environmental groups) designated three winners of “Fossil of the Day” awards yesterday: Brazil (for encouraging an accelerated destruction of the Amazon rain forest, and blaming others for it), Japan (for insisting on building more coal-fired energy generation capacity, despite climate science and simple economics), and Australia (whose Prime Minister denies the impacts of climate change even while enormous wild-fires rage in his country).