ACTU pushes for national transition body to protect energy workers
ACTU President Michele O’Neill has used a speech to the National Press Club to push for a National Energy Transition Authority (NETA) to ensure fossil energy workers and their communities are supported in the transition to renewable energy.
The ACTU, affiliated unions, many investors, and climate organisations want a NETA to be funded this year’s budget.
O’Neill said there was not a choice “between jobs and our climate” – we must act on both.
“That means turning an extractive economy reliant on fossil carbon to a circular economy powered by clean energy…”
And it means the highly skilled workers “who kept the lights on” for the last 15 decades can’t be left behind by the changes necessary in the next three decades.
She cited landmark guidelines adopted by the International Labour Organisation in 2015 aimed at ensuring a just transition towards environmentally sustainable economies and societies. They had a simple premise: that the risks and benefits of change should be distributed equally across society.
In Australia, where the majority of citizens have supported climate change action, we can choose whether or not to “cast aside” workers in traditional energy jobs.
But O’Neill believes the stakes of that choice “are way too high to leave to the whims of the private market”.
“The transition will not be fair by accident. Without active government planning and coordination it will be deeply unfair and deeply damaging to the very communities who helped forge Australia’s prosperity.”
“The challenge of Just Transition is the challenge of government. It requires a strong nationwide response led by the federal government.”
Michele O’Neill speaks out on climate. (National Press Club).
Australia is particularly vulnerable if it doesn’t plan carefully and act urgently because our dependence on fossil fuels “almost unique in the developed world” and the nation is ranked 91st in the world for economic complexity.
Australia’s new federal government signed a Just Transition declaration last November in Egypt, but we still have no federal just transition policy.
“We still have a patchwork of uncoordinated programs and funding streams whose remit only incidentally overlap with the goals of the Just Transition declaration,” O’Neill said.
That means confusion and a lack of certainty for workers facing job losses as coal fire power plants close.
Australia’s current transition response includes duplication and diffused responsibility amongst multiple government agencies.
She is urging the establishment of the NETA to ensure federal resources, state and local governments are mobilised effectively and efficiently under a shared plan.
"Australia’s transition to net zero emissions presents us with an opportunity to rival any in our nation’s history.
“Decarbonising our economy should create hundreds of thousands of good jobs, healthier and more equitable communities, and a renewed national prosperity, while safeguarding Australians from spiralling climate crises.
“To seize this enormous opportunity, Australia must build an economy that restores, rather than degrades, the planet on which it relies.
She said the previous government failed to face “the real challenge of climate change and the industrial revolution required to meet it”.
“This has left a critical element missing from our national response: how to truly support those workers, families and communities most immediately and directly affected by decarbonisation.
“In 2023, with a Federal Government that actually believes in climate change and is committed to net zero emissions, Australia can take stock and look around the world for the best (and worst) examples of what can happen in the communities that bear the brunt of the energy transition.
“There is so much to gain if Australia gets this right, and so much to lose if workers are left behind.”
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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report demands action
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says “warp speed” action is necessary to save humanity, and what happens this decade will be “key to limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius or overshooting it with catastrophic consequences”.
The bad news
The world has already warmed by 1.1 degrees and warming is likely to exceed 1.5 degrees this century under existing pledges
Fossil fuel use is the overwhelming driver of warming and emissions are still rising, albeit at a slower pace
Public and private cash spent on fossil fuels is still greater than for climate adaptation and mitigation
Climate adaptation efforts are poorly funded and well short of what’s needed
Some frontline communities and ecosystems are already reaching the limits of adaptation.
The good news
Renewable power sources are increasingly cost effective and enjoy broad public support
Some impacts are now locked in, but others can be limited by deep, rapid and sustained emissions cuts
The sooner emissions are reduced this decade, the greater the world’s chance of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees or 2 degrees
Action is vital and urgent, but possible.