Sweeney: Unions, Investors Must Push for Clean Environment, Green Jobs

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/02/14/sweeney-unions-investors-must-push-for-clean-environment-green-jobs/

by James Parks, Feb 14, 2008

The global community—investors, workers and government—must come together to create a stable climate and a strong global economy that creates good jobs. Anything else will lead to global disaster, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said today at the Investor Summit on Climate Risk in New York City.

The global economy cannot prosper unless we secure a stable climate and sustainable sources of energy. Global warming means global depression, food and water shortages and drowned cities. I have stood in New Orleans’ Ninth Ward and seen that future.

The one-day summit, held at the United Nations, was sponsored by the United Nations Foundation, CERES and the United Nations Fund for International Partnerships. More than 450 investor, financial and corporate leaders—together controlling more than $20 trillion in investment capital—attended the summit.

Other speakers included Nobel Prize winner Al Gore, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and numerous investment and financial leaders.

Much of that investment capital, some $5 trillion, is in union members’ pension funds. Sweeney challenged the fund administrators to invest the money in ways that promote cleaner technologies and new forms of energy and create millions of jobs at the same time.

Timothy Wirth, president of the United Nations Foundation, said:

The next 50 years represent a unique chance to shift investments to a low-carbon, clean-energy economy. Investors are starting now to seize the economic opportunities of this new energy future, which will be as important as the computer revolution in generating new wealth and jobs.

Sweeney pointed out that at the recent U.N. meeting on climate change in Bali, Indonesia, the global union movement called for decisive action on climate change, especially global warming. But global warming is one of many challenges, he warned. With the world’s supply of cheap energy, especially oil, quickly coming to an end, we must find new ways to meet the growing demand for energy generated by the growing economies of countries such as China and India.

FULL story at link.