Growing green jobs
Unions
call for a ‘decent’ green economy
With only three months left to achieve a deal
to fight climate change at the Copenhagen climate summit, the
International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has launched a new
website on climate change and set out its key policy demands. The
global union body wants to ensure that an “ambitious” climate
change agreement is strengthened by 'Just Transition' policies,
moving workers from polluting jobs to decent jobs in a green
economy. This will involve 'greening' existing industries and
creating news 'green jobs' in clean energy, “cleantech” and
recycling and related industries. Find out more: http://climate.ituc-csi.org/
Unite's campaign to save England’s only wind
turbine plants
Unite has launched a campaign to save England’s only wind
turbine manufacturing plants after Vestas Blades announced its Isle
of Wight and Southampton factories are to close with the loss of
625 jobs and the transfer of production to China and the USA. Unite
raised the closures with Ed Miliband, secretary of state for energy
and climate change, and was seeking assistance from government to
follow the example of the Scottish parliament which recently
invested £10 million in supporting green manufacturing. This money
enabled a £27 million investment from a new Danish company when
Vestas shed its Scottish site.
Unite believes these closures would be a disaster from the point
of view of green jobs, and the long term sustainability of the UK's
energy supply. The call for action is supported by
environmental group Friends of the Earth which believes that the
government must take action now to keep these wind turbine
manufacturing jobs in Britain.
Unite's call for more green jobs and wind
power
The UK has the best ‘wind resources’ in Europe, but currently
generates just five per cent of power from this source, less than
than most other large economies.
Unite wants the government to:
- Address blockages in the planning system, called ‘the most
difficult in the world’ by Vestas CEO, Ditlev Engel
- Take steps to ensure that the banks free up investment for
sustainable investment to create good, green jobs
- Ensure there is sufficient investment in grid
expansion
- Invest more in skills for renewable energy
- Consider following the Spanish example of only allowing
planning permission for sites, if those turbines are at least in
part manufactured in that region (using EU social and environmental
clauses that make this an entirely legitimate practice)
- Introduce tariffs for large scale wind which provides stability
and consistency. Such tariffs have driven rapid expansion of wind
energy in most other large economies and at lower cost to the
energy consumer than our current system
Supporting information
Read Unite's
submission to the House of Commons' Environment Audit Committee
Green Jobs inquiry (PDF)
Read Unite's briefing on the campaign to
save the Vestas wind turbine plants in England (PDF)
Press release: Unite
seeks government intervention to save England’s wind turbine
plants – 19th May 2009
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