Green jobs and airport expansion campaigns

Airports seeking expansion across Europe are subject to growing scrutiny and organised opposition in light of stricter climate targets. Supporters push back that they are engines of local employment. Meanwhile a huge wave of redundancies accompanies the ongoing pandemic restrictions. If it wasn’t obvious before, it is now: jobs are a critical element of our relationship to aviation.

A recent report on Gatwick Airport, the UK’s second largest, showed that at least 16,000 alternative green jobs could be created in the surrounding region via a Green New Deal. This event will hear from the authors of this report, trade unionists and local airport campaigners on how to challenge the local jobs case for airport expansion and make the case for a different route.

Speakers will include:

• Tahir Latif, former aviation group president of the UK trade union PCS, and co-author, ‘A Green New Deal for Gatwick’, which called for urgent investment in green jobs and retraining in the region surrounding the airport.

• Alex Chapman, a Senior Researcher at the New Economics Foundation, and author of recent analyses of the economic case for expansion at Leeds-Bradford and Bristol airports.

• Anne Kretzschmar, an organiser with the international Stay Grounded network, and co-author of its ‘Just Transition of Aviation’ discussion paper.

This webinar will be hosted on Zoom – details below:

Join Zoom Meeting

https://zoom.us/j/92892981279?pwd=eUpRdStVMk5WYVZNTHhvWWphU3Qrdz09

Meeting ID: 928 9298 1279

Passcode: 195673

This event is organised by the Green European Foundation with the support of Green House and the financial support of the European Parliament to the Green European Foundation.