The Futures Foundation

More green jobs than brown

Written by Jan Lee Martin

Friday, 25 July 2008

Remember when commercial fishing interests were opposing restrictions on their operations on the grounds of job losses?  We can’t stop depleting fish stocks, they said, because if we do we’ll lose our jobs.  Uh-huh.  And then?     Now we are seeing the same argument applied to carbon-producing industries.  We can’t stop destroying our natural environment because if we do we’ll lose our jobs.  Uh-huh.  And then?     The fact is there are already millions of new, green jobs in the sustainable economy while jobs in the old, industrial economy are being replaced by machines.  And the new ones are jobs people might actually want to do.  What’s more, they are less likely to be exported.     The Worldwatch Institute reports that the coal, oil and natural gas industries have been offering fewer and fewer jobs as high-cost production equipment takes the place of people.     “Many hundreds of thousands of coal mining jobs have been shed in China, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and South Africa during the last two decades, sometimes in the face of expanding production,” says the Institute’s latest update.  In the US alone, coal industry employment has fallen by half in the last 20 years, despite a one-third increase in production.     Renewables, on the other hand, are poised to tackle our energy crisis and create millions of new jobs worldwide.  Senior Researcher Michael Renner argues that fossil fuel jobs are increasingly becoming fossils themselves, as coal mining communities and others worry about their livelihoods.     Unlike Australia, whose Coalition government stood loyally by its industrial age partners to the very death, strong government support has allowed Germany, Spain, and Denmark to emerge as leaders in renewable energy development - and green jobs.     “The German government reports that the country was home to an estimated 259,000 direct and indirect jobs in the renewables sector in 2006,” Renner said. “This figure is expected to reach 400,000-500,000 by 2020, and 710,000 by 2030.  In the United States, the renewables sector employed close to 200,000 people directly and 246,000 indirectly in 2006, due mostly to leadership at the state level. China is rapidly catching up in manufacturing of solar photovoltaics (PV) and wind turbines and is already the dominant global force in solar hot water development.”     Another new report from the National Resources Defense Council, a national coalition of conservation and labour groups in the US, confirms the good news.      “Everyone is talking about how the transition to a clean energy future will create millions of new ‘green-collar’ jobs,” said Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club. “This report shows that millions of Americans are already working in exactly the kinds of jobs we’ll need to build that clean energy future. Those millions and millions more—from steelworkers to software engineers—stand to benefit from implementing the clean energy solutions we need to fight global warming.”        “This report demonstrates that the quickest way to put Americans back to work is through investments in solving global warming,” said Dave Foster, executive director of the Blue Green Alliance. “The jobs we’ll create are the very jobs our country is losing in the current recession.”       “The commitment to a clean energy economy will not only lead to quality jobs in manufacturing unions and the building trades,” says Leo W. Gerard, international president of the United Steelworkers. “It will help stop good-paying jobs from continuing to be exported.”      “Green jobs” are defined in the report as occupations that contribute toward building or producing goods to achieve a ‘green’ marketplace. At the same time, it links the idea that green jobs should be sustainable employment opportunities—that is, jobs that pay at least a living wage, offer training and promotional opportunities and some measure of security.     “Hundreds of thousands of workers in the US already possess the vast majority of skills and occupations necessary to reduce global warming and make the shift to a clean energy economy,” the report says. “For instance, constructing wind farms creates jobs for sheet metal workers, machinists and truck drivers, among many others. Increasing the energy efficiency of buildings through retrofitting relies on roofers, insulators and electricians, to name a few.”     The Worldwatch Institute says that an estimated 2.3 million people worldwide currently work either directly in renewables or indirectly in supplier industries. The solar thermal industry employs at least 624,000 people, the wind power industry 300,000, and the solar PV industry 170,000. More than a million people work in the biomass and biofuels sector, while small-scale hydropower employs 39,000 individuals and geothermal employs 25,000.     These figures are expected to swell substantially as private investment and government support for alternative energy sources grow. The most optimistic analyses project that global wind power employment will increase to as much as 2.1 million in 2030 and 2.8 million in 2050. Similar projections estimate that worldwide solar PV production alone could create as many as 6.3 million jobs by 2030.     "Government officials now have yet another reason to put the full weight of their support behind renewables," said Renner. "In addition to protecting our planet and phasing out an increasingly limited resource, policies that support renewable energy also support job creation."     So much for the “job losses”.  Perhaps this data, hard on the heels of the Garnaut Review, will encourage our new government to move quickly in supporting new, sustainable industries. We need fast action if we are to protect our habitat – and our jobs.

Last Updated ( Friday, 25 July 2008 )

 

< Prev		Next >