Northwest labor press., December 18, 2015, Page 16, Image 16

PAGE 16 | December 18, 2015 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
... WSLC’s Johnson reports from the Paris Climate Talks
From Page 8
trade-exposed industries, as well
as their communities. Those
jobs will end at some point in
this century. But we have to
make sure the workers in those
communities are respected, so
that there are income and benefit
supports for those workers, so
that they’re brought along, and
not left behind. There have to be
full retraining benefits available
for these workers. If they’re
close to retirement, they need a
free passage to retirement, and
their health and pension benefits
need to be protected. And the
new jobs being created need to
be quality jobs where workers
have a voice at the workplace
and where there’s an opportu-
nity for these jobs to be union
jobs that are high-paid, not part
of the Uber economy. So that’s
what we’re fighting for.
So does the Paris Climate
Agreement include a commit-
ment to a just transition?
The language around just
transition, decent work, quality
jobs and human rights is all in
the preamble — the intention
part of the document, not the
binding part. But I want to be
truthful here: Even in the bind-
ing part of the document, right
now there’s no language that en-
forces the ambitions they put
forth to cut carbon emissions.
So when you add up all the
pledges that countries made to
reduce carbon emissions, it adds
up to a rise in global tempera-
tures of between 3 and 4 degrees
Centigrade. The operating part
of the document says we’re aim-
ing for below 2 degrees, with a
desire to not let temperatures
rise above 1.5 degrees, because
at 1.5 degrees, many island na-
tions no longer exist, and many
shore-lying communities,
Bangladesh, possibly even Mi-
ami, no longer exist. But there’s
nothing in the document that
says if you don’t meet your
pledge, “X” will happen. So in
that context, getting just transi-
tion and human rights language
into the preamble is a big his-
toric first step.
For those who might have
missed the details, what does
the Paris Climate Agreement
do?
Countries have made certain
pledges that they will reduce car-
bon emissions by X percent over
the next 20 to 30 years. But right
now there is no formal independ-
ent or objective review process
that says, “Okay, United States:
You pledged X, so we’re five
years into that, are you on track?”
There is no mechanism to do
that, and if you’re failing to meet
your goal, there’s no enforce-
ment mechanism to say you need
to step it up or get penalized. So
we have a ways to go yet.
So it’s not like the Trans-
Pacific Partnership, which has
muscular protections for
things like corporate intellec-
tual property rights?
No. If there were a tribunal
where people could take corpo-
rations to task for not cutting
their carbon emissions, that
would be a very different world.
After the Paris terrorist at-
tacks, it was announced there
would be restrictions on
protests at the climate talks.
Did that impact what hap-
pened?
Security was very tight at the
talks. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen
as many police or army around.
There was pretty strict control.
Nonetheless, within the blue
zone, which is where the talks
were happening, we had several
demonstrations and rallies that
were tolerated and I think had
some impact. I participated in
the citizens summit in Mon-
treuil, which had thousands of
folks out in the streets. And then
on Saturday the 12th there were
easily 10,000 people in the
streets on the Champs-Élysées.
I thought the police did a great
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Seated from left to right: Jeff Anderson, Bob Petroff, Bob Tackett and Everice Moro. Standing from left to right: Mike Pucik, Terry Lansing,
Rose Etta Venetucci, Janet Irwin, Will Lukens, Sandy Gillis, Dave Tully, Sam Gillispie and Ed Barnes.
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