Bob Baugh directs the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council and chairs its Energy Task Force. He is at the United Nations climate talks with labor delegates from around the world.

After two years of exceeding expectations, a United Nations group of unions is ready to continue creating plans for jobs and addressing climate change.

At the start of this year’s conference, which is known as the 2012 COP 18, nobody thought much would happen, especially because the meeting is being held in Qatar, which leads the world in per capital carbon emissions. Qatar also represents the bloc of oil nations that tied up previous negotiations over demands concerning the potential loss of oil revenue because of a climate agreement. The host country gets to run the meeting and set the agenda for these talks.

Bob Baugh is the executive director of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council and serves as chair of the federation’s Energy Task Force and as the liaison to the International Trade Union Confederation's (ITUC's) Climate Working Group. He is at the United Nations climate talks with the ITUC delegation.

The trade unions of the world have come to the Climate of the Parties (COP) 18, the 2012 U.N. climate talks in Doha, to speak out for workers’ rights and to promote a global climate agreement. The AFL-CIO and the ITUC have worked to promote a Just Transition agenda within a new climate accord that recognizes the need for good jobs, decent work and a democratic voice for workers and communities. Decent work is a recognized set of international standards that includes the right to organize, collective bargaining and for a safe and healthy work environment.

AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council Director Bob Baugh, a member of a global union delegation led by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), sends us another in a series of reports on the new round of United Nations climate change negotiations taking place now in Durban, South Africa.