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…
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;…
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…
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,…
I’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…