Arab Unions' Joint Position Paper for COP 30
This position paper outlines the Arab trade unions’ vision for integrating a just transition into NDCs ahead of COP30. Climate action must integrate social and economic dimensions, ensuring decent work, social protection, and inclusion of vulnerable groups.
The region faces overlapping environmental, economic, and social crises: water scarcity; desertification; heat stress; and threats to agriculture, tourism, and health. At the same time, youth unemployment in the region reaches almost 30%, with women disproportionately affected.
Most Arab countries lack national social protection systems strong enough to buffer workers from climate shocks, with the majority of NDCs still not explicitly mentioning just transition, social justice, or tripartite social dialogue.
The paper calls for institutionalized participation of trade unions in NDC design, implementation, and monitoring and to Arab governments, employers, and workers to commit to a “Decade of Social Justice for Climate and Decent Work.” It also calls for gender action plans embedded in NDCs, investment in the care economy, and equal representation in climate negotiating delegations.
The paper centers on four interconnected outcomes, calling for climate policies that are designed with and for workers.
- The expansion of green jobs: ensuring that decarbonization actively generates quality employment in emerging low-carbon sectors while protecting workers in fossil fuel-dependent industries through retraining, income support, and enforceable labour standards, so that no worker or community absorbs the cost of the transition without receiving its benefits.
- The establishment of universal social protection floors that extend unemployment insurance and adaptive safety nets to all workers regardless of their employment status, explicitly including the informal, migrant, and climate-displaced workers who currently fall through every existing system.
- Inclusive and gender-responsive governance through institutionalized tripartite dialogue, formal union participation in NDC design and monitoring, and the meaningful representation of women and vulnerable groups in climate decision-making.
- The development of a skilled and resilient workforce through national green skills strategies, structured retraining pathways, and strengthened occupational safety standards that equip workers to enter low-carbon sectors rather than being stranded by them.
