Strengthening Climate Targets, Creating Local Climate Jobs Archives

Oct 03 2019

Climate Jobs and a Just Transition: responding to our climate and ecological emergency (Belfast)

By GEF

About the Event

A radical shift towards a green and sustainable economy is needed to address the global climate and ecological crises.

This conference will look at the urgency and scale required to mobilise climate action and how we can deliver an alternative energy system.

Furthermore, we will explore how we can ensure a just transition that is fair to everyone in society, and the technologies we need to change our energy system.

Politicians, energy experts, union representatives and speakers from a range of other perspectives will discuss and exchange, offering key insights into the potential solutions to these pressing crises.

Programme

10:00 to 11:00:
Climate Jobs Report by Green House Think Tank
Speakers include:

Jonathan Essex (Green House Think Tank)
Peter Sims (Green House Think Tank)

11:00 to 12:00:
Place-Based Policy Alignment and Just Transition – The Belfast Climate Commission
Speakers include:

Damien McIlroy (Queen’s University Belfast)
Clare McKeown (Belfast City Council)
Amanda Slevin (Queen’s University Belfast / Place-Based Climate Action Network)

12:00 to 13:30:
Trade Unions and the Just Transition – From Origins and Context to Policy and Practice
Speakers include:

Sean McCabe (TASC)
Sinéad Mercier (National Economic and Social Council)
Stiofán Ó Nualláin (Trademark Belfast)
Jeff Robinson (Unite the Union)

14:30 to 15:30:
Keynote Address – Asad Rehman (War on Want)

15:30 to 16:30:
Fuelling the Just Transition – The Role of Non-Carbon Energy
Speakers include:

Juliana Early (Queen’s University Belfast)
Andy Gouldson (Leeds University / Place-Based Climate Action Network)
Paul McCormack (Belfast Metropolitan College)

16:30 to 17:30:
Political Party Panel

Registration

This event is free and open to the public.

Please register your attendance at this event here.

Jun 07 2019

Love0

Climate Emergency – Raising Ambition (London)

By GEF

Event Background

With the consequences of climate change beinng increasingly perceptible through extreme weather events (both worldwide and in European countries), verifiable research is urgently needed to set targets and policies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the amount necessary to secure a livable environment. At the same time, policies to reduce greenhouse emissions are often attacked for threatening existing jobs.

GEF’s transnational project “Strengthening Climate Targets, Creating Local Climate Jobs” sets out to explore what greenhouse emissions reductions would mean in practical terms for our job markets and economies, and whether jobs could be created in rural areas across Europe. Can both a safe and just economically sound life for all be achieved? To this end, our project undertook research on the potential to create more climate jobs in three EU countries with diverse historic and economic prerequisites: United Kingdom, Ireland and Hungary. In 2019 the project is expanding also to Poland.

About the Event:

This climate energy conference is a one-day event for those looking to act on the climate emergency. What can local authorities and communities do? What scale of change do we need to be looking at? What could the benefits be for jobs and local economies? How do we keep fossil fuels in the ground?

Speakers:

Andrew Simms, (Rapid Transition Alliance) – the Climate Emergency
Nadine Andrews, (Green House) – Climate psychology & cultural shifts
Paul Allen, (Centre for Alternative Technology) – Zero Carbon Britain
Jonathan Essex and Peter Sims, (Green House) – Climate Jobs
Sam Mason (PCS Union) – Need for a Just Transition
Fatima Ibrahim (IPPR Environmental Justice Commission) – Need for a Just Transition
Yves Marignac, (Association négaWatt) – Europe-wide transition
Simon Pickering (Councillor, Stroud District Council) – Reducing in-house emissions
Philip Webber (formerly of Kirklees Council) – Street by street retrofit
Ian Christie (University of Surrey) – Widening the coalition
Agamemnon Otero (Repowering London) – Renewable energy
Page Dykstra (Community Supported Agriculture Network UK) – Land/Food Transition
Robert Read (The A Team Foundation) – Land/Food Transition
John Webb (Herts WithOut Waste) – Materials/Waste Transition
Neil Pitcairn (United Kingdom Without Incineration Network) – Materials/Waste Transition
Stephen Joseph (Transport Policy Consultant) – Transport Transition

Programme:

10:00-10:30 – Registration & refreshment

10:30 – Welcome and introductions – Natalie Bennett Green European Foundation, Anne Chapman Green House
– The Climate Emergency – Andrew Simms
– Climate Psychology and cultural change – Nadine Andrews
– Questions and discussion
– Introduction to parallel sessions and workshops

11:45 – Tea/ coffee break

12:00 – Parallel sessions – Making a plan
– Green New Deal and Just Transition – Fatima Ibrahim and Sam Mason
– Climate Jobs – Jonathan Essex and Peter Sims
– Zero Carbon plans – Paul Allen (Centre for Alternative Technology) and Yves Marignac (negaWatt)

13:00 – Lunch and information/discussion tables on:
– Reuse and recycling – Herts WithOut Waste & UKWIN
– Sustainable and Active Transport – Stephen Joseph,
– Renewable energy – Repowering London
– Food and farming – Community Supported Agriculture Network & Team A Foundation
– Street by street retrofit – Philip Webber (formerly Kirklees council)
– Local councils – Simon Pickering, Stroud District Council

14:30 – Workshops – Making it happen
– Making an Action Plan – Simon Pickering, with Jonathan Essex and Peter Simms
– Identifying key enablers and blockers of a step change in emissions.
– Widening the Coalition – Ian Christie, Surrey Climate Commission
– Establishing partnerships, setting up a local climate commission and citizens assemblies.

15:30 – tea/coffee break

15:45 – Making change happen – Feed back from workshops and panel discussion chaired by Natalie Bennett

17:00 – Conference Ends

Practicalities:

Conference fee: £10

Please register for this event via the form found here.

Sep 12 2018

Love0

Climate Jobs – Towards a Zero-Carbon Economy (Bristol)

By GEF

Context

With the consequences of climate change being evermore perceptible through extreme weather events (both worldwide and in European countries), verifiable research is urgently needed to set targets and policies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the amount necessary to secure a livable environment. At the same time, policies to reduce greenhouse emissions are often attacked for threatening existing jobs.

About the event

This upcoming side event at the Autumn Conference of the Green Party of England and Wales will offer an introduction to the GEF transnational project. In particular, it will present the results of modelling to estimate the net number of jobs that could be created in each local authority area of the United Kingdom, via the transition to a zero carbon economy, in the key sectors of energy, transport, waste management, buildings and food, farming, and forestry.

During the event, the overall GEF project as well as the research findings and resulting policy recommendations for the United Kingdom will be presented by:

Jonathan Essex, Green House Think Tank

Anne Chapman, Green House Think Tank

Chaired by: Natalie Bennett, Board Member Green European Foundation and former Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales

For more information on this workshop and the Autumn Conference of the Green Party of England and Wales from 5 to 7 October in Bristol, you can find the programme here.

For updates and other upcoming events of this GEF transnational project, follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Sep 12 2018

Love0

Change of Climate in the World of Jobs? (Budapest)

By GEF

Context

With a changing climate, many traditional jobs will be lost all over Europe, as a just transition to less carbon emission intensive industries and a green economy is inevitable. Innovative policy proposals will be necessary to create new jobs that do not threaten the emission reduction targets as they have been agreed in the Paris Climate Agreement from 2015.

About the event

As part of the transnational project “Strengthening Climate Targets, Creating Local Climate Jobs”, this conference will feature a first presentation of the local job creation potential in Hungary in a zero carbon society that has been estimated as part of this year’s project research. Together with the data gathered on the United Kingdom and Ireland, this estimation will be a first step towards quantifying and publicising the EU-wide potential of greening local economies to create new climate jobs, and better address climate change, in the run-up to COP24.

Programme

17:00 – 17:20 PRESENTATION OF THE GEF TRANSNATIONAL PROJECT AND RESEARCH RESULTS – Jonathan Essex, Green House Think Tank United Kingdom

17:20 – 17:40 4th INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: REDUCE OR INCREASE EMISSIONS? – Miklós Kis, Journalist

17:40 – 18:00 CLIMATE CHANGE AND SOCIAL JUSTICE – Sándor Fülöp Phd, Co-chair of Ökopolisz

18:00 – 18:15 COFFEE BREAK

18:15 – 19:30 Q & A, DISCUSSION

Registration

To register for the event, please click here.

Stay tuned for updates on the programme here and via our Twitter and Facebook channels.

Aug 02 2018

Love0

Facing up to Climate Reality (Norwich)

By GEF

Context

With the consequences of climate change being more and more perceptible, also in European countries, through extreme weather events, verifiable research is urgently needed to set targets and policies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the amount required to secure a livable environment.

What would those reductions mean in practical terms, for instance for our economies? Can we create jobs in rural areas across Europe and not only secure a safe but also a just, economically sound life for all?

GEF’s transnational project “Strengthening Climate Targets, Creating Local Climate Jobs” explores those questions and aims to explore the potential to create more climate jobs in three EU countries with diverse history and economic prerequisites: United Kingdom, Ireland and Hungary.

About the event

Our upcoming one-day conference, organised with the support of Green House Think Tank, will consider these questions, as well as what we can learn from past extreme weather events in Europe for how we might cope in the future. It will be one stepping stone towards our upcoming research publication on the potential of local jobs creation in the three mentioned countries and will serve as an opportunity to discuss first findings for the United Kingdom more in-depth.

Programme

9:30 -10:00 REGISTRATION

10:00 -10:10 WELCOME AND INTRODUCTIONS – Rupert Read

10:10 – 11:30 FACING UP TO CLIMATE REALITY – chaired by Catherine Rowett, with Brian Heatley and Asher Minns

11:30 -11:45 BREAK

11:45 – 13:00 CLIMATE JOBS – chaired by Anne Chapman, with Jonathan Essex and Peter Sims

13:45 – 14:45 FUTURE OF AGRICULTURE AND RURAL ECONOMIES – chaired by Rupert Read, with Simon Fairlie and Helen Baczkovska

14:45 – 15:00 BREAK

15:00 – 15:30 DEALING WITH EXTREME WEATHER – chaired by Rupert Read, with Anne Chapman

15:30 – 16:00 FINAL DISCUSSION

Speaker Biographies

Rupert Read is chair of Green House think tank and Reader in Philosophy at the University of East Anglia.
Catherine Rowett is professor of philosophy at the University of East Anglia. She was the Green Party parliamentary candidate for South Norfolk in the 2015 and 2017 General Elections.
Brian Heatley is a founder member of Green House think tank. He is a former senior civil servant and former policy co-ordinator for the Green Party.
Asher Minns is executive director of the Tyndall Centre at the University of East Anglia. He is a science communicator who specialises in knowledge transfer of climate change research to audiences that are outside of academia.
Jonathan Essex is a member of Green House and an associate of Bioregional where he advises on new project development and policy. He previously worked for bioregional on sustainable construction and material reuse. He is a Green Party district and county councillor for Redhill, Surrey. He has led the work done by Green House on ‘Climate Jobs’.
Peter Sims is an Electronic Engineer who specialises in systems engineering and in particular the overlap and interfaces between human and non-human systems. He has carried out the modelling to estimate the number of jobs that could be created by the transition to a low carbon economy in Green House’s work on ‘Climate Jobs’.
Simon Fairlie is one of the editors of The Land, an occasional magazine about land rights, and author of Meat, a Benign Extravagance (Permanent Publications, 2010). He runs Chapter 7, which provides planning advice to smallholders and other low income people in the countryside. He has also had much practical experience of small scale farming in the UK and France.
Helen Baczkovska is an ecologist and writer based in rural Norfolk. She works as a conservation officer at Norfolk Wildlife Trust.
Anne Chapman is a member of Green House think tank. In 2017 she organised a conference in Lancaster (where she lives) on dealing with extreme weather.

Stay tuned for updates on the programme here and via our Twitter and Facebook channels.

The conference is free of charge but secure your place now by registering via this link. For further information, get in touch with info@greenhousethinktank.org.

Jun 13 2018

Love0

Jobs in a Changing Climate (Dublin)

By GEF

Context

With a changing climate, many traditional jobs will be lost all over Europe, as a just transition to less carbon emission intensive industries is inevitable. It will be vital for all stakeholders, such as policy makers, trade union representatives, civil society organisations, think tanks and businesses to establish a dialogue and to come up with new solutions to those challenges – and the Green movement can spearhead this process.

About the event

As part of the transnational project “Strengthening Climate Targets, Creating Local Climate Jobs”, this conference will contribute to the discussion within the Irish society and among the key stakeholders on how to ensure a just transition to Zero Carbon and create local climate jobs across the country.

The event will also feature results of the ongoing research of the Green European Foundation and its partners to draft and launch strategies for local investment to create more climate jobs in Ireland.

One of the practical examples that will be discussed is the proposed closure of three peat burning power stations in the Midlands and the effect on the livelihoods of 400 workers. Studies have been carried out on how the transition to a low carbon society in the UK will create sustainable jobs in Sheffield and Isle of Wight. Also we will look at the Lucas Plan, where workers devised viable alternatives to redundancies, using their skills to develop socially useful products and services. The implementation of the Circular Economy will also affect jobs, positively and negatively, and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.

Speakers

Duncan Stewart, Environmentalist, Broadcaster, and Chair, Green Foundation Ireland

Tommy Simpson, Project Coordinator Green Foundation Ireland and former President Dublin Council of Trade Unions

Jonathan Essex, Project Coordinator, Greenhouse Think Tank United Kingdom

Peter Simms, Researcher,Greenhouse Think Tank United Kingdom

Adrian Kane, Public Administration and Community Division Organiser, SIPTU

Sinead Mercier, Researcher, Just Transition

Yvonne O’Callaghan, Strategic Organiser, SIPTU Trade Union Ireland

Joseph Curtin, Senior Fellow, Institute of International and European Affairs

The input by the speakers will be each followed by Q&A sessions to allow for full participation in the event of those attending.

The event is free of charge but registration is required. To secure your spot follow this link.

Registration for the event on the day starts at 9:30.

For more information on the conference, please contact info@greenfoundationireland.ie

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