Labor Is Ready, but Obama Climate Change Vision Still Needs Work

Sean Sweeney and Lara Skinner, directors at the Global Labor Institute at the Worker Institute at Cornell, issued a joint statement in response to President Obama’s vision for combating climate change outlined earlier this week.

Skinner and Sweeney say:

“President Obama acknowledged that the U.S. must act immediately to address climate change, yet the steps he proposed to reduce emissions remain insufficient to address the problem.

“President Obama restated his 2009 goal to reduce emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. This target is far below the emissions reduction targets set by the world’s leading scientific body on climate, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Moreover, the president neglected to reinforce the need for a fair, ambitious and binding global climate agreement. The international trade union community supports such an agreement, as do many of its allies in social movements, fully aware of the fact that workers, women, immigrants and people of color around the world are disproportionately impacted by the effects of climate change.

“On energy issues, President Obama continues to support an all-of-the-above energy policy. This approach fails to acknowledge that wind, solar and other forms of low-carbon, sustainable energy are not developing and expanding at the pace or scale necessary to address climate change. Expansion of ‘extreme energy,’ like tar sands oil and shale gas, which use extraction methods that are risky to workers, communities and the environment, is already leading to job losses in the wind and solar sectors and dampens investor confidence in renewable sources of power.

“Addressing the climate crisis presents an important opportunity for President Obama to create good jobs that reduce emissions and pollution, and help build resilient communities. However, to take full advantage of this opportunity President Obama’s plan will need to match the intensity of the present climate crisis in its vision and ambition by committing to science-based emissions targets and timetables.”