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.

Arab Region Has the Highest Unemployment Levels in the World

The UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) and the International Labour Organization issued a report stating that the Arab region had the highest levels of unemployment worldwide, especially among women and young people. 14.3 million people were already unemployed before the COVID-19 pandemic, but the pandemic has increased pressure on Arab labor markets, causing more than 39 million individuals in hard-hit sectors to have reduced wages/hours of work or being laid off. 

The recent COVID-19 pandemic has further exposed the weaknesses of the education system in the region, at least in terms of infrastructure, access to technology, and teachers’ skills. Even the attempt to shift to e-learning has been a challenge for the Arab region. 

The report also states that skills mismatches in the Arab world likely occur for the following reasons:

• Poor quality of education and irrelevance of educational and training systems to the labor market. According to ESCWA calculations based on data from the World Bank’s Enterprise Survey, almost 40% of firm owners claim that the inadequately educated workforce is an obstacle in the Arab region;

• Lack of career guidance and orientation towards relevant fields of education;

• Individual preferences for working in the public sector and investing in skills suitable for public-sector jobs, irrespective of the skills needed by the private sector;

• Unfair access to education: many individuals cannot afford access to quality education that would enable them to get value-added jobs in the labor market;

• Imperfect information in the labor market: suitable workers and firms have difficulties finding each other; 

• Creation of low-quality jobs requiring low skills and minimal education, influenced by the growth of informal non-productive jobs.

Rola Dashti, the Executive Secretary of ESCWA, stressed the lack of gender equality in Arab labor markets, as women hold few top management positions and have lower shares as business owners. The increase in female labor participation rate was 2.76% between 2000-2020 but was matched with an average growth of 3.4% in female unemployment. 

In Arab, 64% of the total employment is also informal, which means own-account workers (without hired workers) that operate an informal enterprise. Meanwhile, political unrest and conflicts remain a primary obstacle in the region, impairing enterprise performance, affecting investor and consumer confidence, and subsequently limiting investment and consumption.

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. 

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.

ILO’s Global Campaign for Ratification of Violence and Harassment

The International Labour Organization Convention 190 on violence and harassment in the world of work held a convention on June 25th, 2021. Many global unions will be launching a toolkit to support the Convention 190 (C190) and its Recommendation 206 (R206). This manual will provide many unions worldwide with tools to eradicate violence and harassment in the world of work. Millions of workers are affected by physical assault, bullying, sexual harassment, online abuse, economic violence, and abusive work practices globally. These are some of the most widespread forms of violence in the workforce. 

The COVID-19 pandemic deepened pre-existing inequalities and exposed vulnerabilities in social, political, and economic systems. A report by the UN shows that violence against women has intensified in the past year. Many women and girls felt economic impacts, and the global gender pay gap is stuck at 16%, with women paid up to 35% less than men in some countries. 

The toolkit will aim to provide unions with tools to develop workplace solutions that tackle violence and harassment with a special focus on gender-based violence and harassment and ensure that violence is not considered “part of the job.” 

Christy Hoffman, UNI Global Union General Secretary, said:

“Unions fought relentlessly to win this Convention. Now that it has come into force, we must make sure more countries ratify it and that it is properly implemented. There is still a long road ahead and this toolkit is another step for unions to gain the necessary knowhow that will enable them to put the ILO Convention 190 and Recommendation 206 into practice so that workers live in a world free from violence and harassment.”

The toolkit consists of a facilitators’ guide and an activities workbook. It aims to:

• Encourage discussion about violence and harassment and gender-based violence in the world of work.

• Raise awareness about Convention 190, its accompanying Recommendation R206, and its significance for workers – particularly women workers.

• Encourage unions across the world to campaign for the ratification of Convention 190 and its effective implementation in line with Recommendation 206.

• Encourage unions to use these instruments to integrate Convention 190 into the union bargaining agenda.

• Build stronger unions to enable workers to assert their rights to a world of work free from violence and harassment.