Climate change is now widely acknowledged as one of the great – if not the greatest – challenges facing humanity in the coming decades. Through its impact on average temperature, precipitations and sea levels, it will endanger the livelihood of hundreds of millions and impose increasing costs on our societies if nothing is done.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the only way to get the sort of commitments needed to effectively deal with the challenge is to create a global consensus that involves all stakeholders. Such a consensus will only arise if there is a seemingly “just” sharing of the burden in this battle to keep the planet hospitable to human beings.
This is particularly true when it comes to employment. It goes without saying that climate change and policies to mitigate it will in time have an enormous impact on industries, jobs and workers. Yet, despite the rhetoric about the elusive “social dimension” of sustainable development, until very recently climate change negotiations showed only limited concern about the fate of workers, and far greater efforts were directed at measuring the environmental rather than the social impacts of climate change.
This issue of the International Journal of Labour Research is meant as a modest contribution to start to fill that gap. Contributions to this issue highlight the fact that climate change already has an impact, particularly in the South and in the agricultural sector, exacerbating the problems of poverty and migration. They point to the need for the international community to free up resources to help provide viable alternatives, notably through adaptation programs. Unfortunately, the evidence thus far on the adaptation programmes promoted under the aegis of the United Nations seems to suggest that workers’ concerns have been absent from the drafting of the programmes, notably in the case of small island States where people are amongst the most vulnerable to the consequences of climate change.
But what also emerges from this issue is that trade unions have become quite active around the issue of climate change in recent years. They have been visible as proponents of ambitious reduction targets for greenhouse gases, often forging alliances with the environmental movement; they have pushed for a number of initiatives, notably around the issues of renewable energy, the retrofitting of housing or the greening of public transportation. In addition, they have taken the lead in performing the research to assess the job impact and employment potential of moving towards a green economy.
The publication includes case studies from Mexico, the Netherlands, and the United States.