📅 Tuesday, October 6, 2026
🕤 10 a.m. (Montréal) | 3 p.m. (Royaume-Uni) | 4 p.m. (Europe continentale)
💻 Online – Zoom
Since the beginning of international climate negotiations in the early 1990s, trade unions in many countries have sought to strengthen their capacity to engage in the climate transition. These efforts intensified following the 2015 Paris Agreement, which at the time appeared to offer a clearer path towards decarbonization.
A decade later, the context has changed considerably. Workers are facing the employment impacts of industrial decarbonization amid intensifying climate change and growing geo-economic instability. Climate policies are increasingly contested and exposed to political risk, while just transition frameworks have so far not always delivered on their promises to workers.
In this context, what lessons can be drawn from the first wave of union efforts to engage in the climate transition? What has worked, and what has not? And how can unions become strategic climate actors at a time when the transition itself is becoming increasingly contested?
About the webinar
This international webinar will bring together three trade union representatives from Canada, Scotland and Spain to compare their experiences and draw lessons for union action.
The three speakers will be invited to provide an overview of the situation within their respective organizations and countries and to share the key lessons they have drawn from their experiences. The discussion will focus in particular on efforts to secure workers’ interests in climate policies and just transition initiatives, organizing and mobilization strategies developed in different contexts, and priorities for union action in the years ahead.
This webinar builds on the work of the Green Skills Lab at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), including research conducted as part of the “Advancing the understanding of challenges, policy options and measures to achieve a JUST EU energy transition” project (AdJUST, Horizon Europe), and the CRIMT Partnership on Experimentation for Better Work, including the work of CRIMT’s Workers as Climate Actors research team.
It aims to bring experiences from different countries into dialogue and explore how unions can play a more strategic role in increasingly contested climate transitions.
Speakers
Ryan Morrison, Just Transition Officer, Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC), United Kingdom;
Patrick Rondeau, Director, Environment and Just Transition Department, Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec (FTQ), Canada;
Manuel Riera Diaz, Technical Coordinator, Climate Action and Just Transition Department, Unión General de Trabajadoras y Trabajadores (UGT), Spain
Introductory remarks : Ben Crawford, London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), United Kingdom
Moderator : Gregor Murray, CRIMT, Université de Montréal, Canada
Closing remarks : John Peters, CRIMT, Memorial University, Canada
Registration is free but mandatory
The webinar is co-hosted by the LSE Green Skills Lab and the CRIMT Partnership on Experimentation for Better Work.
Languages: English and French, with simultaneous interpretation.
