The COP26 Coalition Trade Union Caucus has agreed a model motion for trade union branches. Please circulate and pass in your trade union branch and modify for trades councils and other union forums.
Model Motion for Union Branches
This union branch notes that:
1.Human-caused climate breakdown is leading to and exacerbating extreme weather events across the globe: heat waves, wildfires, floods and hurricanes, and loss of biodiversity.
2. The IPCC 2018 Special Report has warned of the dire consequences of exceeding 1.5ºC global average warming and that a societal transformation would be needed to avoid this, including halving global carbon emissions by 2030; nevertheless, global emissions have continued to rise.
3. The climate crisis is a social justice issue, with those who have done least to cause the crisis and who are least able to address it facing the worst impacts. We need to mobilise for a just transition which protects and improves workers’ livelihoods, creates a more inclusive society and stops greenhouse gas emissions.
4. Wealthy, industrialised countries have a responsibility to take on their fair share of emissions reductions; that the UK’s target of net zero by 2050 is insufficient to avoid global temperatures rising above 1.5ºC, and that the UK is failing to implement policies to meet even this target.
5. We also face a global and UK crisis of unemployment; that tackling the Covid-19 pandemic represents an ideal opportunity to invest in climate jobs, in a just transition and a fairer society; and that the global response to this opportunity has been wholly inadequate.
6. The UN COP26 negotiations in Glasgow in November 2021 are crucial for the success of global plans to limit response to climate change; yet the UK government continues to back false solutions like carbon markets and block the transformational changes which are necessary.
7. UK civil society needs to exert maximum pressure on the British government in the coming year for a green recovery and just transition, and to show leadership as COP26 host; that trade unions can play a key role in the COP26 coalition in which UK civil society has been organising as part of the wider global climate justice movement.
This union branch resolves:
- To urge our union to join the COP26 Coalition.
- To campaign, alongside allies in civil society for massive public investment in a green recovery that tackles the climate and ecological emergencies, creates climate jobs and is underpinned by a fair deal for workers both here and in supply chains in the Global South.
- To join the national mobilisations for protests during the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow in November 2021.
- To send a delegation to Glasgow / To donate towards the costs of trade union transport to Glasgow / To donate towards the costs of members wishing to join protests in Glasgow.
- To send this motion to our regional and national organisation.
2 thoughts on “Building for COP26- Trade Union model motion”