China Enters a Major International Climate Agreement

Chinese chemical companies must stop emitting HFC-23, a super-pollutant and an unwanted byproduct of the production of hydrochlorofluorocarbon-22. China and India dominate the global HFC-22 production, with 75% in 2017. China recently began enforcing the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol. The agreement requires China and other countries to stop emitting HFC-23, which is 14,600 times more powerful than carbon dioxide in warming the atmosphere. 

In an address to the U.N. General Assembly, Chinese president Xi Jinping made a new climate commitment not to build any new coal-fired power projects abroad. China will also increase financial support for more green energy projects. The pledge came hours after United States President Joe Biden announced a plan to double financial aid to poorer nations to $11.4 billion by 2024 to help those countries switch to cleaner energy and cope with global warming’s worsening effects.

“We need to accelerate a transition to a green and low-carbon economy,” Xi said in a speech at the U.N. General Assembly. “We will make every effort to meet these goals. China will step up support for other developing countries in developing green and low-carbon energy, and will not build new coal-fired power projects abroad.”

The United Nations first targeted HFC-23 emissions in China in 2006, when a U.N. program known as the Clean Development Mechanism or CDM began incentivizing HCFC-22 producers to destroy their HFC-23 emissions. The program paid HCFC-22 producers in China and other developing countries emission reduction credits, traded with developed countries to meet their emission reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol. 

Although China has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, ten companies in China built new HFC-22 capacity after April 2015 or are currently building new production facilities. In addition, three companies have also expanded or are in the process of expanding their HCFC-22 production capacity.

However, in another encouraging sign, the Bank of China said that it would no longer provide financing for new coal mining and coal power projects outside of China. 

IPCC Climate Change Report Finds That Major Climate Changes Are Inevitable and Irreversible

The United Nations formed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to inform national governments about the science and potential impacts of climate change. Humans have heated the planet by roughly 1.1°C since the 19th century, mainly from burning coal, oil, and gas for energy. 

The consequences of global warming can be seen this summer alone, with heatwaves across the US and Canada, floods devastating Germany and China, and wildfires are raging out of control across the world. Unless immediate, rapid, and large-scale action is taken to reduce emissions, the report says, the average global temperature is likely to reach or cross the 1.5°C warming threshold within 20 years. 

Some key points from the IPCC report:

• Global surface temperature was 1.09C higher in the decade between 2011-2020 than between 1850-1900.

• The past five years have been the hottest on record since 1850

• The recent rate of sea level rise has nearly tripled compared with 1901-1971

• Human influence is "very likely" (90%) the main driver of the global retreat of glaciers since the 1990s and the decrease in Arctic sea-ice

• It is "virtually certain" that hot extremes including heat waves have become more frequent and more intense since the 1950s, while cold events have become less frequent and less severe

While this report is more clear and confident about the downsides to warming, the scientists are more hopeful that if we can cut global emissions in half by 2030 and reach net zero by the middle of this century, we can halt and possibly reverse the rise in temperatures. 

Reaching net-zero involves reducing greenhouse gas emissions as much as possible using clean technology, then burying any remaining releases using carbon capture and storage or absorbing them by planting trees.

According to a draft of an upcoming IPCC scientific report, some lifestyle changes could also cut emissions twice the size of Brazil’s current emissions by 2030. Changes include heating and cooling set-point adjustments, reducing appliance use, shifting to human-centered mobility and public transit, reduced air travel, and improved recycling. The draft IPCC found that individual behavior change in isolation cannot reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly, but individuals can contribute to overcoming barriers and enable climate change mitigations. 

The full second report, set to be released in 2022, will detail how climate change might affect human society, such as coastal cities, farms, or health care systems. A third report, also expected next year, will explore more fully strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and halt global warming.

Heavy Job Losses Causes Employment Crisis in the First Half of 2021 in Myanmar

Estimates released by the International Labour Organization (ILO) suggest that Myanmar is experiencing significant deterioration in its labor market conditions since the military took power in February this year. The economy is already weakened by the COVID-19 pandemic, with over 60,000 workers across the country losing their jobs due to factory shutdowns caused by canceled orders and the COVID-19 pandemic's disruption of raw material supplies.

The United Nations estimates that employment contracted 6% in the second quarter of 2021 compared to the fourth quarter of 2020, reflecting 1.2 million job losses. In the first half of 2021, an estimated 14% of working hours were lost, which is equivalent to the working time of at least 2.2 million full-time workers. In terms of both working-hour and employment losses, women are estimated to have been impacted more than men.

Many sectors have been hard hit following the military takeover. In the first half of 2021, employment in construction, garments, and tourism, and hospitality decreased by an estimated 35%, 31%, and 25%, respectively, with even higher relative losses in working hours. 

Tourism and hospitality, still impacted by the slowdown in 2020 caused by COVID-19, have been unable to recover and took a further hit since the military takeover. Most international flights and visa issues have remained suspended due to COVID-19 and security concerns, and domestic travel has largely ceased. 

Circumstances since February 2021 might have forced or incentivized a large number of workers to reduce their working hours, with associated income losses, adding to the adverse impacts on a labor market that had already come under severe strain as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Factors that might have played a role include curfews and other restrictions imposed by the military regime, fear of exposure to violence when going to and being at the workplace, electricity and internet cuts, greater security risks for businesses, a decrease in consumer demand, as well as large-scale worker strikes. 

OSHA Changes Focus of the COVID-19 National Emphasis Program (NEP)

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recently made substantial changes to its National Emphasis Program (NEP) for COVID-19, including removing some industries from the list of targets for intensified inspection activities. 

OSHA also made a new name for the program, which will no longer be called the NEP but will be designated as the Interim Enforcement Response Plan (IERP). The original NEP and the new IERP will only apply in the states subject to federal OSHA enforcement and do not apply to the states with their own occupational safety and health agencies. 

Last March, the agency announced the creation of the NEP for COVID-19 enforcement action focusing on employers in higher hazard industries. The NEP mandates that 5% of each OSHA region’s total inspections must be related to COVID-19, resulting in a total of about 1,600 inspections. NEPs are temporary programs that focus OSHA's resources on particular hazards and high-hazard industries. Other NEPs adopted since 2008 have dealt with combustible dust, hazardous machinery, hexavalent chromium, lead, primary metal industries, process safety management, shipbreaking, crystalline silica, and trenching and excavation.

The creation of the NEP for COVID-19 initially targeted the healthcare industry, including hospitals, healthcare providers, assisted living facilities, and home healthcare services. In May of 2020, the NEP focused on targeting restaurants, including both full-service and limited-service establishments. 

Among the changes included in the IERP issued on July 7, the revised directive shrinks the number of targeted industries whose workers are identified as being most at risk for COVID-19 exposure. Those covered by the program still include healthcare, and some non-healthcare industry segments are considered a higher risk, such as meat and poultry processing and warehousing.

23 Million People in Latin America and the Caribbean Have Transitioned to Teleworking

During the pandemic, teleworking has allowed continuous businesses and job opportunities as a way to cope with the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. While many sectors experienced a devastating drop in economic activity in employment, falling income, and business closures, teleworking allowed many to have jobs. 

Before the pandemic, less than 3% of wage earners worked from home, but after isolation measures went into effect, 20-30% had to transition to working remotely from home. Especially in less developed countries, teleworking helped cushion the negative impacts of the crisis on labor markets and contributed to the preservation of millions of jobs. Vinicius Pinheiro, the International Labour Organization (ILO) director for Latin America and the Caribbean, said that teleworking would continue to be an option and generate new opportunities in the future.

A report from the ILO advises that while it is too early to predict the extent of the effectiveness of teleworking, countries and societies must be prepared to assume that this modality is here to stay, either as a convenient solution for some people and companies or through the proliferation of hybrid forms that combine work at establishments with work from home.

The report also says that "informal workers, self-employed, young, with lower qualifications and with low earnings, who experienced the greatest job losses and hours worked, especially in the first half of 2020, had much less access to teleworking”. This could be because these countries are characterized by a labor structure with an overall low level of information and communication technology use and high technological gaps. 

The analysis by ILO highlights some relevant aspects that must be addressed to face the challenges of teleworking:

• Voluntariness and agreement between the parties

• Organization and working time

• Health and safety at work

• Equipment and work items

• Protection of the right to privacy of workers

• Gender dimension and telework

• The role of social actors

• Labor relationship and compliance with legislation

The International Labour Conference No. 109, held in June 2021, urges to utilize and adapt teleworking and other new work arrangements to retain jobs and expand decent work opportunities through regulation, social dialogue, collective bargaining, and workplace cooperation.