Maybe it is too early to say definitively but the event felt that suddenly a section of the trade union movement in Britain has decided that climate change is an issue that it has to make an urgent priority. There were at least three hundred people present and the majority of them were neither part of the far left nor any of the established environmental groups.

The morning plenary was chaired by the Green Party’s Jean Lambert. First up was Frances O’ Grady who you’ll probably know has been TUC Deputy General Secretary since January 2003. In common with the accounts that follow this summary is based on my scrawled attempts at note taking so apologies to all those who feel that I haven’t done justice to some of the nuanced subtleties of the discussion. She began by saying that the battle against climate change is part of the the struggle for global justice because the poor and vulnerable of the earth, those who have been responsible for the lowest amount of carbon emissions will be the most severely affected. You can’t argue with that.

Apparently Adair Turner of the Confederation of British Industry has said the this very fact creates a moral duty on the rich to mitigate and reduce their emissions.

Willie Walshe of British Airways took the advice to heart and has planted eighty trees in his back garden. He’s also using his Mercedes less. I urge all readers of this site to do the same.

Addressing the employment consequences of creating a low carbon economy Frances called for training, re-employment and investment in future technologies. She also proposed a windfall tax on profit making energy companies to offset fuel poverty and pointed to the challenge of recruiting and organising young worker to meet the challenge of climate change.

Caroline Lucas of the Green Party returned to the theme of employment in a low carbon economy and explained that it would be labour intensive, requiring people to work on recycling, repairing and reusing products rather than just manufacturing disposable commodities. Referring to Green Party policy Caroline put the case for contraction and convergence and what she called a “border tax adjustment” which is a tax on imports from polluting countries (I think).

Matt Wrack of the Fire Brigades Union began from a fire and rescue perspective. His union’s research suggests that there has been a double digit percentage increase in heath and grassland fires in recent years. Ninety percent of Ilkley Moor was destroyed by fire. Along with fire his service has been responding to major floods in parts of the country. He made the case that these events can be planned for but need to be properly funded and that many of the new flood defences are inadequate.

According to Matt he overheard a government minister say that climate change is the most serious case of the market’s failure imaginable.That’s a New Labour minister.

Unusually for him Matt got a bit radical towards the end. He told the audience that only the organised intervention of the working class movement can stop climate change and went on to say that a sustainable future does not require the working class to pay the price. The needs of ordinary people need to be put before profits. God knows where he picked this stuff up!

“The deeply unjust capitalist order is responsible for climate change driving the world’s poor to death and destruction!” The surprising radical of the day was Michael Meacher who, if memory serves, was the first speaker to mention the war. He gave a well informed speech looking at energy use in power generation, transport and homes. One nugget he shared was that the waste heat from the power generating system in the United States would supply the energy needs of all Japanese industry. Blimey!

There were five workshops. I went along to the one given by Jutta Kill of FERN. She achieved the impossible and managed to make a talk on carbon trading comprehensible and interesting. I’m going to nick some of what she had to say for our Socialist Resistance meeting on Wednesday. You can get some idea of what she had to say in this New Internationalist article.

The workshop on sustainable cities was delivered by Glyn Robbins, our assistant deputy catsitter. My take on the discussion that followed was that it showed how little understanding of the issue there is. Lots of people were able to talk with some fluency on the subject of council housing and the meeting rarely got beyond this level to talk about transport, energy use or water. We all still have a bit of learning to do.

Jonathan Neale opened the second plenary. His delivery reminded me of Orson Welles’ sermon in John Huston’s version of Moby Dick. That is a compliment. The style matched the subject. The data from the Greenland ice sheet indicate that that previous global warming events happened very abruptly following a longish period of slow rises. The action that is required has to happen in his lifetime and he is fifty nine. The earth needs to be covered with systems to generate wind, wave and solar power.

It’s not enough to lobby and persuade governments. This situation requires a global mass movement to force them to take action or that will replace them. Scientists have told the world what is happening but now we need to move beyond the scientists, NGOs and environmentalists. The engagement of millions of ordinary people is required and unions are the way in which they can be mobilised.

John McDonnell gave a description of his admiration for the Heathrow Climate Camp and an appeal for people to get involved in direct action that makes you wonder how he can bear to remain in the Labour Party.

Derek Wall can give a fuller account of his contribution for himself. Two points that stuck out for me were his call for an economy based on use values and his illustration of some example of eco-industrial action when building workers in Australia refused to build environmentally destructive videos.

If you want to find out what Tony Kearns had to say listen to the video of his talk at the Bethnal Green meeting on Thursday.

You’ll have noticed from reading this partial account that there was quite a spectrum of the British labour movement participating in the event. There were some significant absentees too, in particular from the transport, manufacturing and constructions sectors. Tony Kearns make the point that there are two types of trade unionist at the moment. Those who take climate change seriously and those who don’t yet. All will soon have to start getting involved in it because very soon it will start affecting every one of their members’ jobs, environments and way of life. Yesterday’s conference was the arrival of the organised working class in the struggle against climate change.