Posts Tagged “COP18”

  • Environment

    Qatar blog #4: cold comfort for a warming planet

    10th December 2012 — Filed under: Environment

    Philip Pearson Philip Pearson

    Follow unions at the UNFCCC in Qatar

    First reactions from Doha on Saturday, where a 36-hour closing session brought cold comfort to a warming planet.  For Sharan Burrow of the ITUC:

    “There will be no jobs in a dead planet, nor a Just Transition with this outcome. We need time to build the industrial and social policies to help working people fully participate in a sustainable economy. Delays will make our task difficult, almost impossible. In order to be Just, the transition must start now.”

    The WWF went for the science:

    “What millions of people experienced this year is that fighting climate change is now extremely urgent. Every year counts, and every year in which governments do not act increases the risk to us all.”

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  • Environment

    Qatar blog #3: A day in the life of a union delegate

    6th December 2012 — Filed under: Environment

    Philip Pearson Philip Pearson

    Follow unions at the UNFCCC in Qatar

    ETUC delegate Benjamin Denis sends this report from Doha, a day before the closure of the Doha meeting.

    Ministers have arrived and face crucial unresolved issues. Before the carbon-cutting commitments of the Kyoto Protocol can be relaunched from 01 January 2013, governments must agree how many “carbon credits” can be carried forward into the next period; and how much they can offload domestic commitments onto overseas investments. And some governments are still  stalling on their commitments to the $100bn Green Climate Fund for developing nations agreed in Cancun in December 2010.

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  • Environment

    Qatar blog #2: No Just Transition without labour rights

    3rd December 2012 — Filed under: Environment

    Philip Pearson Philip Pearson

    Follow unions at the UNFCCC in Qatar

    Both climate change and labour rights come together uniquely for the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) delegation in Qatar. Qatar has the highest per capita carbon emissions of any country, while numerous reports cite its systematic abuse of  international labour standards. For example, Qatar doesn’t publish figures for industrial deaths. But Embassy figures show that 191 Nepalese and 98 Indian workers died in Qatar in 2010, mostly in construction. So the ITUC reports  not only its lobbying work for a new climate agreement, but also its visits to labour camps accompanied by local organisers and trade unionists from Nepal and from international building workers’ union.

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  • Environment

    Qatar blog #1: Climate nightmare

    26th November 2012 — Filed under: Environment

    Philip Pearson Philip Pearson

    Follow unions at the UNFCCC in Qatar

    As the UN assembles in Qatar for its 18th annual climate change conference, a new UN report warns of a 14 billion tonne “emissions gap” in 2020 between  “business as usual” and the emissions level needed to hold the increase of global temperatures below the 2°C target. 14 billions tonnes is more than China’s carbon emissions in 2010 (11 billion tonnes). This week, too, the UK government publishes its long-awaited Energy Bill, but without a “decarbonisation target” for 2030, despite the Energy Secretary’s best efforts. And so this message from a member of the trade union delegation in Qatar perhaps hits the spot:

    “Qatar is really a climate nightmare – worse than imagined. Malls with ice skating, gondolas (Venice-style), and the slogan from the Qatari hosts: “Shop til you drop – spend your all-day leisure time shopping and socialising with multi-national shoppers in the malls.”

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  • Environment

    Durban diary 2: Oil state Qatar to host next climate conference?

    29th November 2011 — Filed under: Environment

    Philip Pearson Philip Pearson

    UN Climate Change Conference, DurbanI’m here in Durban, taking part in an open debate with the South African miners’ union, the NUM, on a post-coal future when news comes through on where the UN will stage next year’s climate conference. How about Qatar, notorious for its violations of workers’ rights?

    It’s difficult to imagine a more crass way to handle this. ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow said:

    “Huge economic transformation is needed to tackle climate change. This massive task can only be achieved if working people’s rights are respected. It cannot be simply imposed from above.

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