COP27 is taking place against the backdrop of ever more extreme weather and ecological events. The Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) opened the conference with a warning that the world is not on track to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees. Urgent action is needed now to reduce carbon emissions and ensure a just transition for workers.
RMT along with the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) is taking part in the Global Day of Action for Climate Justice on 12th November 2022. This RMT briefing sets out action that is needed in the transport, maritime and offshore sectors to reduce emissions and deliver worker justice in the UK. ITF’s briefing, COP27 – Climate Justice, Worker Justice, is available here. You can show your support for these issues on social media using the following hashtags during COP27: #unions4climate #COP27 #WeAreITF
Reducing transport emissions to tackle the climate crisis
• Transport is the UK’s largest emitting sector of Greenhouse Gases (GHG). In 2020, transport accounted for around a quarter of all domestic emissions.1 Between 1990 and 2019, domestic transport emissions reduced by just 5%.2
1 https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1051407/2020 final emissions statistics one page summary.pdf
2
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/transport and environment statistics 2022/transport and environment statistics 2022#:~:text=have%20higher%20occupancy.
,Greenhouse%20gas%20emissions%20from%20transport,from%20128%20to%20122%20MtCO2e%20
• Over half of domestic transport emissions come from private cars alone. In contrast, rail and buses are far more energy efficient and make up less than 5% of domestic transport emissions.
• A recent report by the Intergenerational Foundation compared domestic train travel and flights and found that travel by train is seven times more environmentally friendly than flying.3
• Given the scale of emissions reductions needed to decarbonise transport, a shift to electric cars will not be sufficient, and instead there needs to be significant modal shift from private cars to public transport.
• While transport emissions dropped in 2020 due to the Covid 19 pandemic, provisional figures for 2021 show an increase in transport emissions of 10% from 2020.4 With car usage now regularly exceeding pre pandemic levels on weekends, it is clear that the status quo will not deliver the modal shifts needed to tackle the climate crisis and instead urgent action and investment is needed to enable people to make the shift from cars to public transport.
• Transport GHG emissions not only affect the environment, but also our health. The WHO estimates that more than 40 UK cities are unsafe due to their high levels of pollution. Tens of thousands of people in the UK die unnecessarily each year from diseases caused by air pollution with the estimated financial costs of health impacts likely to exceed £8 20 bn.
• The privatised, fragmented and unreliable nature of our public transport systems means that many areas lack easy access to public transport, and this drives high levels of car ownership.
• Yet, despite the integral role public transport has in tackling climate change, the UK Government seems intent on making public transport more unaffordable, unattractive and unreliable.
• The Government is actively pursuing policies such as mass ticket office closures and an extension of Driver Only Operation that will push passengers away from public transport and into cars. Local authorities remain prohibited from setting up their own municipal bus companies and instead are reliant on commercial operators delivering local bus services. The pandemic has resulted in bus operators slashing services to focus on profitable routes. For instance, one of the largest bus operators in the UK, First Group, recently reported that it was running 20% fewer bus services than before the pandemic.
• Public transport jobs are ‘green jobs’ and the Government should be investing in and expanding the sector, not inflicting short-sighted and damaging cuts. Yet thousands of transport worker jobs are under threat, and the Government and companies are attacking the pay and working conditions of the transport workers who kept our transport networks running throughout Covid 19 crisis.
3 https://www.if.org.uk/research posts/trains over planes why the government should encourage domestic train travel/ 4 https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1064921/2021 uk ghg provisional figures statistical summary.pdf
5
• Around 40,000 RMT members working at the infrastructure company Network Rail and the Westminster Government managed train operating companies have taken numerous days of industrial action in defence of their jobs, pay and conditions. Various other groups of RMT members, including at London Underground, London Overground, ScotRail and bus companies are also involved in industrial disputes.
• Whilst frontline workers are engaged in industrial disputes in defence of their jobs, pay and conditions, it’s business as usual for the private companies that own much of our transport networks. In the latest year, there was around £600 million profit for the companies that operate the trains, £150 million dividends paid out by the companies that own the trains and around £235 million profit for the private companies that repair the tracks (outsourced renewals).
• RMT believes that if we are to enable modal shift from road to rail, this profiteering must cease. Instead of leaking out to a few private shareholders, this money should be reinvested in improving and expanding the rail network.
• We need a green transport revolution that makes services more affordable, available, accessible and attractive to use. Our public transport networks should be properly staffed, and workers valued and invested in rather than being seen as a cost to be cut.
• Transforming public transport is ambitious but also affordable, this is because the economic benefits of public transport expansion exceed the costs of paying for it. The Rail Industry Association has estimated that in 2019 for every £1 spent in rail, £2.50 of income was generated in the wider economy.5
• Modelling by the ITF and C40 in five global cities found that investment in public transport in line with the 1.5C goal would in London alone create over 140,000 jobs in public transport plus a further 160,000 jobs across the city’s economy.6
• Transforming public transport must involve redirecting the billions allocated to road building and bringing rail and buses into public ownership to end profit leakage.
• Unlike the UK Government, other countries have recognised the importance of investing in public transport. For instance, the German Government has announced a new unlimited travel pass, covering rail, tram and bus for €49 a month.
• While rail is already far more energy efficient, less than 40% of the network has been electrified and recent progress to increase this has been slow. The ORR recently reported that between April 2021 and March 2022, just 2.2 electrified track km were added to the network.7 Yet, there is 13,000 km of railway line that needs to be electrified by 2050, averaging at 464km a year.8
• The UK is falling way behind our European counterparts when it comes to rail track electrification. The UK currently has less than 40% of the network electrified, France has 59% of their railway network electrified, Germany has 61%, Spain has
https://riagb.org.uk/theraileconomy
6 https://www.itfglobal.org/en/reports publications/cop27 climate justice worker justice
7 https://dataportal.orr.gov.uk/media/2139/rail infrastructure assets apr 2021 mar 2022.pdf
8 https://www.networkrail.co.uk/wp content/uploads/2020/09/Traction Decarbonisation Network Strategy Interim Programme Business Case.pdf
64%, Italy 72%, Belgium 86% and Switzerland 100%.9
• The climate crisis is not just an environmental problem, it is a problem of social and economic justice. The concentration of global and national wealth and power in the hands of corporations and the Governments they influence means decisions around climate change are currently being taken to protect power and profits rather than people and planet. A crucial step in challenging climate change is for decisions to be made in the interests of workers through strong trade unions.
Maritime and Offshore
• Offshore and maritime workers are being denied a Just Transition. Offshore oil and gas workers are still expected to fund their own re training for jobs in the growing offshore wind sector. Some progress has been made in Scotland10 but the UK Government’s North Sea Transition Deal still has not delivered an Offshore Training Passport for over 30,000 skilled offshore staff to protect their livelihoods and work in all energy sectors without extra cost or duplication.
• Seafarers continue to be treated as expendable assets. Despite unlawfully dismissing nearly 800 UK crew in March, public funding11 is being given to P&O Ferries to meet the shoreside electric power costs associated with two Chinese built diesel electric ferries for the Dover Calais route in 2023.12
• On CalMac Ferries, the Scottish Government’s £243m overspend on two LNG powered ferries that are five years late is threatening public sector provision and the terms and conditions of CalMac staff, many of whom live in the island communities they serve.
• International agreements on green shipping should include high employment standards above the Maritime Labour Convention. The Clydebank Declaration on Green Shipping Corridors at COP26 has been cemented at COP27 with the UK, USA, Norway and the Netherlands committing to drastic emissions reductions on future services.13 Trade union recognition for seafarers must be a mandatory feature of these agreements.
• Seafarer employment conditions should reflect the economies at the end of each route, not an international minimum based on economic conditions in the top five labour supplying countries, the Philippines, Russia, Indonesia, China and India.14
• Collective bargaining agreements are central to a Just Transition in the maritime and offshore sector. A requirement for trade union recognition should be part of the Nationally Determined Contribution reporting process, as committed to at COP26 15
9 https://www.allianz pro schiene.de/presse/pressemitteilungen/deutschland faellt bei e mobilitaet auf gleisen zurueck/ 10 https://www.energyvoice.com/oilandgas/457321/energy skills passport success after doubts cleared/ 11 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/clean maritime demonstration competition cmdc 12 https://www.niferry.co.uk/first new po ferries dover ship floated out in china/ 13 www.gov.uk/government/news/maritime sector given green boost with major cop27 pledge 14 https://www.ics shipping.org/publication/seafarer workforce report 2021 edition/ 15 https://ukcop26.org/supporting the conditions for a just transition internationally/
• According to the Maritime Just Transition Taskforce,16 collective bargaining has a key role in delivering a just transition for seafarers. And an estimated 850,000 seafarers, over 42% of the current global workforce will require re training by 2035 to operate low and zero emission vessels. International conventions at IMO and ILO level must be updated to ensure that Ratings and Officers are entitled to free retraining and fair pay and conditions to work on hydrogen, electric, methanol and other green fuelled ships needed to meet shipping’s evolving decarbonisation targets.