California Adaptation Forum 2016 Report-Back

Last Wednesday and Thursday, September 7-8, the 2nd California Adaptation Forum (CAF16) was held in Long Beach, California. Attendance totaled just over 500, according to the Local Government Commission (LGC), the main organizer of the CAF. It was smaller than the first CAF held two years ago in Sacramento. But, being more intimate, it was a great networking event. Also in contrast to the first CAF it focused on one through-running theme: equity in climate change planning. Presentation proposals were required to explain how they addressed the issue of equity, and preference was given to sessions that included representatives of vulnerable populations among the speakers. This gave the gathering a distinctly different vibe from more academic and scientific conferences on the topic of climate adaptation I've attended.

Content from CAF presentations can be found here.

The lively Twitter stream from the conference can be seen by searching #CAF16 or clicking here.

The conference's smaller attendance was partly due to the lack of state employees, prevented from coming as a result of a labor dispute at the host hotel.

Some saw the labor dispute as a teachable moment. I heard several panelists over the course of the two-day conference reference the dispute and cite the need for labor rights and fair treatment of workers as part of a vision for a sustainable world under climate change. That sentiment was expressed by speakers whose work involves supporting labor unions, immigrants, and outdoor laborers, and one voice from the business sector, President of the Sierra Business Council Steve Frisch.

More on the Labor Dispute

Earlier this year the CAF host hotel, the Renaissance Long Beach, was put on a boycott list by a local union, UNITE HERE Local 11. The organizers found out about it in June, too late to relocate the conference without incurring a steep financial penalty. As a result of the boycott, California State employees were told by their union that they couldn't attend the event. Presumably as a result of that, the pre-conference climate science symposium (which was targeted at state employees in its previous iteration) was canceled. This cancellation might have had some knock-on effects, causing people who were more interested in the science symposium to stay home.

State agency representatives comprised at least 1/3 of the attendees at the first CAF (my estimate based on a show of hands of attendees at one of the keynote addresses). This time, there was only one state employee, and he was attending (I was told by a mutual friend) "on the down-low." Most of the attendees were from local governments, federal agencies like NOAA and EPA, non-profits, and consulting firms.

Apparently the basis of the boycott is the hotel's resistance to maintaining neutrality while allowing union organizers to approach employees and ask them to sign a card authorizing the union to represent them, whereupon the hotel would have to agree to recognize the union if a majority signed the cards, also called "card check neutrality."

After the conference, Kif Scheuer, the LGC's Climate Change Program Director, told me that he and other LGC representatives met with the hotel management on the second day of the conference in the company of some allies from organizations attending the CAF. At that meeting they asked the hotel to notify people planning events at the hotel about the ongoing labor dispute, and also to consider agreeing to card check neutrality. The hotel was apparently noncommittal in its response.

It appears the hotel doesn't dispute the employees' right to organize, but it would prefer they organize by secret ballot, not by being approached one-on-one by union organizers and being asked to sign something publicly while the hotel is bound to not attempt to undermine the effort (e.g., not hold mandatory meetings denouncing the union).

Go here for the most recent information on the labor dispute at the host hotel, last updated on August 24th as of this writing.

A Vision for California in 2050

Just a guess, but I'm betting this call for comments on a state "vision" that I received in my inbox this past Wednesday Sept. 14th via the California Natural Resources Agency's "CNRA_CLIMATE" mailing list was supposed to be launched at the CAF:

"The California Natural Resources Agency, in partnership with the California Environmental Protection Agency, California Department of Food and Agriculture, California State Transportation Agency, California Health and Human Services Agency, California Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency, the Strategic Growth Council, and the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research, is please to share the attached, 'Vibrant Communities and Landscapes: a Vision for California in 2050.' This draft vision for comment and discussion is intended to consider land use in the context of California’s climate change policy and begin to explore how the State can support actions, at all level of government, to facilitate development and conservation patterns that help to achieve the state’s climate goals, both greenhouse gas emissions reductions and the ability of communities and natural systems to adapt to the expected impacts of climate change. Please send comments to: ca.50m @ opr.ca.gov"

(Hyperlink and spaces in the email address are my own.)

More on the 2014 CAF

My Sept. 2, 2014, article written for WWF about the first CAF

My Sept. 15, 2014, post about the first CAF with audio/video links, and the slides from the panel on fog that I moderated.

Presentations from the first CAF - held August 19-20, 2014, in Sacramento, CA.

California Climate Change Conferences in Flux

This will not be news to people registered for the California Climate Adaptation Forum, but bystanders might be interested to know:

The California Climate Change Symposium "Science to Safeguard California" that was to be held Tues. Sept. 6 at the Renaissance Long Beach Hotel, the same hotel where the California Adaptation Forum (CAF) will be held Sept. 7-8, has been rescheduled and relocated. It will be held in Sacramento on January 25-26, 2017.

The reason for the above change is that it was being organized by state entities (California Natural Resources Agency, the California Environmental Protection Agency, and the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research) and there is a labor dispute at the host hotel that has led to all state employees, who are union members, being told to stay away from this hotel. This is a paraphrasing of something passed on to me a few weeks ago by an employee of the California Coastal Conservancy (who was trying to figure out a work-around, such as attending as a private individual, with no luck).

The organizer of the CAF, the Local Government Commission (LGC), is a non-profit and not a union shop, so the CAF is going forward despite state employee withdrawal from participation.

A friend who is not a union member but who has qualms about potentially crossing a picket line contacted the LGC about the labor dispute, and was sent this reply on Aug. 12 indicating some ways she might engage with the negotiation process (the text links are as sent in the e-mail):

The hotel staff is not on strike, there is an organized campaign by UNITE HERE [Local 11] to raise awareness of labor issues and to pressure the hotel to allow them to unionize using a card check neutrality process. The campaign includes a protest outside the hotel on some days. We have more information here on a web page  we setup on the situation so that everyone could know what was happening. 

In terms of updates, we are still in active discussions with representatives from UNITE HERE about ways to further engage during our event and to use our presence as a means to engage with hotel management on their concerns. We are currently developing a letter to the hotel management and owners describing how their actions have affected our event specifically, and at the request of some partners have created a template for anyone who wants to provide their own feedback to the hotel. We are talking with UNITE HERE about following-up with this letter by bringing a delegation to management during the event to ask them to allow the card-check neutrality process to go forward and are potentially going to try to get a news piece to cover the situation during the event.

If you are interested in any of these activities please let me know. Don't hesitate to contact me should you have any further questions or concerns.

Sincerely,
Kif Scheuer
Climate Change Program Director
Local Government Commission

So far it looks like the UNITE HERE Local 11 campaign will not be resolved in time for state employees to participate at the California Adaptation Forum. That, plus what I've heard about the approved workshops, makes this a gathering with a strong emphasis on private, local community groups. It will be interesting to see what unfolds!

The California Adaptation Forum - Session Proposal Deadline Extended

Today was the deadline for California Adaptation Forum session proposals, but this afternoon the Local Government Commission extended the deadline to next Friday, April 15. Submit your proposal here.