Society President Rebecca Caron participated in COP30 as part of the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) delegation, representing the interests of our members, workers, and the Canadian labour movement at the global environmental conference to our government, other governments, other unions, NGOs and non-state actors from other countries. We were part of an organized international cooperative labour presence to make sure workers interests are put front and centre in critical global environmental issues.
The main focus for the CLC delegation was the successful advocacy for the International Trade Union Confederation’s demands to create the Belem Action Mechanism (BAM) which is an accountability mechanism design to ensure better implementation for just transitions and to ensure that workers and their unions have a formal role in shaping just transition policies through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
President Caron spoke as part of two panels. For the first panel titled From Vision to Practice—Concrete Examples for Just transition Rebecca joined other international experts to talk about specific examples of just transition, both Canadian experiences and the potential for successfully moving workers) from high to low carbon jobs. The second panel, in the Canadian Pavillion, focused on the value of strategic national investments—like new nuclear—as a driver of good jobs, just transition, and carbon reductions in the current Canadian context.
The Society also held meetings with representatives from energy unions around the world in order to make relationships, discuss common interests, and to begin to create ongoing information sharing and collective action working groups. Countries represented included Canada, Britain, Colombia, South Africa, France, Indonesia, Brazil, and the United States. As part of these meetings the Society’s leadership made connections with unions who share bargaining relationships with companies where we also represent workers.
This was the third COP that the Society has participated in. The Society was able to continue to boost our international reputation and build important new relationships that will not only benefit our union and its membership, but will also help strengthen the position of organized labour globally.