Governments must be bold to create low carbon jobs

The Global Climate Network is part way through a study reviewing and analysing the existing data on jobs creation in low carbon sectors. We're focussing in the main on electricity generation and we've just published an interim paper containing some early findings. You can read it on the GCN website using the following URL.

http://www.globalclimatenetwork.info/pressreleases/?id=3734

While there is still a shortage of reliable data on absolute numbers of jobs likely to be created in low carbon sectors, what's interesting about the results so far is that it appears there is a net jobs gain in switching from carbon intensive to low carbon energy. This is in part because construction jobs will be created, sometimes in places where jobs in general are scarce, but also because some of the key technologies require more intensive labour than their carbon intensive equivalents.

The most striking figures to date come from the GCN's Chinese member - Professor Jiahua Pan and his team at the Research Centre for Sustainable Development in Beijing. Early, and it should be emphasised tentative, calculations suggest that while the closure of carbon intensive factories with inefficient technology could reduce the growth in jobs by around 10 million, perhaps as many as 40 million additional jobs could be created in renewable energy, high-tech and service industries.

All predictions of this nature are necessarily only indicative. However, the lesson of the study - and one that I feel certain will be writ large across it when we come to present the final findings - is that governments need to commit themselves to bold policies in order to ensure opportunities of this magnitude come to pass. That means more ambitious renewable energy and energy efficiency targets, the investment of more government money, tougher product standards and intelligent policies surrounding the commercialisation of new technology.