Trade Unions in the United States and around the world, have condemned President Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. We are not fooled by false promises of a sustainable future in fossil fuel industries and are clearer than ever that there are no jobs on a dead planet.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka has stated that:
"Pulling out of the Paris climate agreement is a decision to abandon a cleaner future powered by good jobs.
A deteriorating environment is not the only thing at stake here. When our leaders isolate America from the rest of the world, it hurts our ability to raise incomes for working families and achieve fairness in the global economy. The U.S. labor movement will continue to urge the United States to stay in the agreement so we can achieve the best outcomes for America's workers."
Leo W. Gerard , International President United Steelworkers union has also added that Workers want a green economy, not a black environment.
'signing the Paris Climate Accord last year committed the United States to preserving what we all share, the water and the air, for our children and their children. Donald Trump's withdrawal from that agreement moves the United States, and the world, back in time to rivers so toxic they burn and air so noxious it poisons. Trump's retreat makes America deadly again.
The USW supports job creation. But the union believes clean air pays; clear water provides work. Engineers design smokestack scrubbers, skilled mechanics construct them and still other workers install them. Additional workers install insulation and solar panels. Untold thousands labor to make the steel and other parts for wind turbine blades, towers and nacelles, fabricate the structures and erect them. Withdrawing from the Paris Accord diminishes these jobs and dispatches the innovators and manufacturers of clean technologies overseas where countries that continue to participate in the climate change agreement will nurture and grow them".
The ETUC has also added that "Ultimately however it is the USA which will lose out. Europe and Asia will be the world leaders in clean energy and green economy if President Trump wants the US to be stuck in a last-century fossil fuel economy."
Finally, the ITUC's Anabella Rosenberg states that "Bush & Trump used risks for jobs to justify leaving climate deals. But something changed. Unions. We're on the right side of history"
'the decision of the Trump administration to withdraw from the Paris Agreement sets back united action on climate and risks jobs, said Sharan Burrow, the General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation.
Full ITUC response here
