TRADE UNIONS worldwide have thrown their weight behind demands for the imposition of a tax on financial transactions to raise money for the UN’s Green Climate Fund for developing countries.
Bob Baugh, who chairs an energy and environment task force for the AFL-CIO in the US, said it believed in a “cleaner planet and good jobs”, but finance was “the central question to be answered”.
For this reason, the International Trade Union Confederation, which represents 171 million workers in 151 countries, was calling for the imposition of a tax of 0.2 to 0.5 per cent on all financial transactions.
“We believe it’s time for the financial community to step up to the plate”, Mr Baugh told a press briefing in Bonn this week. “A tiny tax on finance would be a giant leap forward for the climate fund.”
He said it could raise several hundred billion dollars a year and would also be fair because it was the “reckless actions” of banks and other financial institutions that had caused the recession.
Mark Lutes of the World Wildlife Fund said most governments were now “strapped for cash” and needed to look at alternative sources of revenue from aviation, shipping and financial transactions.
However he said the willingness of most countries represented in Bonn to talk about long-term financing for climate change adaptation and mitigation was being blocked by the US, Canada and Japan.
Mr Baugh said the US delegation “don’t want to talk about raising revenues – period” because of opposition at home, particularly among Republicans.
Cat Stace of the UK Youth Climate Coalition, said it also strongly supported such a tax, not least because it would “come out of the pockets of those most culpable” for the financial crisis.
Tetteh Hormeku of the Africa Trade Network said the case for a financial transactions tax was “very clear” because of the scale of resources required and the “limited amount of money on the table”.
Former president Mary Robinson pointed out that 1.4 billion people still had no access to electricity. “That’s a scandal in the 21st century, and it could be part of our approach that we close that gap very rapidly.”
