Does unionization reduce CO2 emissions in Canada?

ABSTRACT

The existing literature is ambivalent on the relationship between unionization and climate change. There is some anecdotal evidence that in some cases, labor unions play a role in implementing climate protection measures. In other cases, unions were more concerned with saving jobs than with reducing emissions. Nonetheless, empirical studies on the relationship between unions and environmental outcomes are limited. The objective of this study is to fill the gap in the literature by examining if unionization has any impact on CO2 emissions in Canada, after controlling for energy consumption, unemployment rate, and real GDP per capita. Cointegration techniques including Johansen methods and autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) techniques are applied to a dataset that covers the period from 1969 to 2016. The results suggest that, on average, a 1% increase in unionization reduces CO2 emissions by approximately 0.25%. This is the first study that examines the union-climate dynamics for Canada. One policy implication of the finding is that the governments should develop incentives for industries to implement climate measures through collective bargaining.