Greener Jobs Alliance (GJA) Newsletter No. 41 – October 2022
No. 424/2022
Our Ref: EX18/22
To: All Branches
Dear Colleagues,
Greener Jobs Alliance (GJA) Newsletter No. 41 – October 2022:
Introduction
The Greener Jobs Alliance (GJA) came into existence as a result of funding from Battersea and Wandsworth TUC. The GJA was launched to promote skills training and job creation to meet the needs of Britain’s rapidly growing low carbon sectors and to green the whole economy.
The transition to a low carbon and resource efficient economy can drive sustainable economic recovery and job creation in every part of the country as well as making existing jobs more secure. But this requires a more strategic national and local approach to deliver the workforce skills needed and to stimulate demand for clean energy and energy efficiency services.
The Greener Jobs Alliance liaises at a national and local level to build the broadest possible support for the policies, investment, partnerships and commitments needed to drive the transition to a low carbon economy.
The Greener Jobs Alliance liaises with training bodies, colleges, universities, employers, local and national Government, trade unions, housing associations, campaign and community groups – to build the policies, investment and partnerships needed to drive the transition to a low carbon economy.
GJA ‘free’ Courses:
The GJA runs a number of ‘free’ courses on the environment for Trade Union Reps in different parts of the UK which have been attended by a number of CWU Reps with details published in the newsletter.
Link to GJA Courses: https://greenerjobsalliance.co.uk/courses/
GJA Founder Graham Petersen:
The founder GJA Secretary and Newsletter editor was Graham Petersen who is well known to the CWU and has a long standing working relationship with the Union. He is a former TUC tutor and course designer who created safety reps training courses and the successful TUC Occupational Health & Safety Diploma Course.
He was the head of the Trade Union Studies Centre at South Thames College before retirement from the post and has been a visitor and guest speaker at CWU events and meetings. After 30 editions, Graham stood down at the GJA AGM last year and has handed over to Paul Atkin as newsletter editor and Tahir Latif as GJA Secretary. Graham remains a GJA Steering Group member and is now working part time for the Wales TUC having recently written a publication for them ‘Greener workplaces for a just transition – a Wales TUC toolkit for trade unionists’ which was circulated by the CWU Health, Safety and Environment Department.
Paul Atkin Editorial GJA Newsletter Issue 41 – ‘Enough is enough. Truss on the skids’
In this edition Paul Atkin in his editorial focuses on the scale of the growing crisis, pointing to the floods in Pakistan and the hurricane impacts on Florida showing that climate breakdown is beginning to hit us on a bigger scale, making recovery increasingly hard. The urgency of action has never been more apparent and we are in a period of damage limitation, in more ways than one says Paul.
Liz Truss used to work for Shell. It might be argued that she still does. It’s no accident that the Tory Government, heavily influenced by climate change sceptics, is imploding, thanks to its application of economic theories associated with Right Wing Think Tanks that share offices – and sometimes brain cells – with the Global Warming Foundation who exist to defend the over consumption of the top 1% and 10%, responsible respectively for 26% and 48% of global emissions growth since 1990 and whose rising wealth threatens to take us beyond 1.5C by 2030 regardless of what the rest of us do. These could well be described as “vested interests masquerading as think tanks” and they do indeed spend a lot of time taxiing from town houses in London to BBC (and other) studios “to dismiss anyone challenging the status quo”. Borrowing to fund tax cuts and letting the fossil fuel producers off with no tax on windfall profits is the action of what one business investor called “a doomsday cult”, with another commenting that buying UK Government Bonds now requires “a moron premium”.
So, we have a government on the skids, and, as the pound sinks slowly in the West and Liz Truss scuttles from car crash interview to car crash interview with that frozen face and pocket full of lead balloons, anything they announce from here on can be undermined by the opposition simply stating “we will undo this”. There is a lot to undo. (Paul Atkin).
Contents GJA Newsletter 41:
Editorial: Enough is enough. Truss on the skids.
TUC Fringe Meeting and Motions Guide
Net Zero Scrutiny Review
Party Conference Round Up; Labour. Greens
Retrofit in the West Midlands and Leeds
The elephant in the room that just isn’t going away – air pollution
School Leavers Climate Literacy. The only way is up?
Teach the Future launch Curriculum for a Changing Climate
Global Climate Jobs Conference
Forthcoming Conferences
Actions
Green Bites
Quote of the Month:
“This is the undeniable truth of our age. It is cheaper to save the planet than destroy it.”
(Ed Miliband MP)
Attachments:
See attached copy of the GJA Newsletter No.41 for October 2022.
Yours sincerely
Dave JoyceNational Health, Safety & Environment Officer
Comentários