Clean Power

Published on September 25th, 2009 | by Zachary Shahan

Green Economy = More Jobs

September 25th, 2009 by Zachary Shahan

A new report released today says that if we shift our economy — to a greener, low-carbon economy — we will have more jobs, not fewer.

Earlier this week, Tony Blair (former prime minister of the UK) and the Climate Group reported that if we worked to avoid climate change we’d create 10 million new jobs by 2020 — worldwide. Another recent study by Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council says that such a shift could increase employment in the EU by 2.7 million jobs by 2030.

One more report, released today by the Global Climate Network (an alliance of nine influential think tanks) comes to similar conclusions.

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More Jobs from Clean Technology

“Creating Opportunity” is the name of the report, which is about findings from an international study to be published in October. Conducted in nine countries, it finds that “creating markets for low‐carbon technologies will in turn create new job opportunities and that these will be greater than the number of jobs lost in carbon‐intensive sectors.”

Creating renewable electricity generation markets and prioritizing low-carbon sectors in China could create 30 million additional jobs by 2020.

Going full-throttle on wind energy development in India could create 243,000+ jobs by 2020.

In Nigeria, 273,500 extra jobs could be created from the development of smallscale hydro and gas technologies.

International Interconnections

Another major finding, echoing Tony Blair and the Climate Group’s findings, is that there will more benefits if there is global cooperation.

Those 243,000+ jobs in India (above) could jump to 288,000+ jobs if there is strong global devlopment of wind energy.

Overall, more global investment equals more benefit because we live in a global economy now with global supply and demand.

Careful with the Numbers

The report states that we all need to be careful not to get caught up in numbers. Jobs will increase, but in new technology markets there is always a lot of variation in the growth over time. The report says, “politicians should adopt a guarded approach to predictions of job numbers and targets and focus on measures to stimulate low‐carbon technology markets. All such data is highly uncertain and is based on sets of assumptions that, as technologies and technology markets mature, may prove errant.”

This kind of thing has happened in the information and communication technology sectors already and “teaches us that the dynamism of technology is inherently unpredictable and that numbers of jobs created by prioritising technology could be many times greater than current predictions are likely to suggest.”

The positive thing, is that in most cases the estimates will be lower than the actual number of jobs created.

Strong Governmental Polices

One of the most important factors in this new job creation is strong governmental policies. The report builds on earlier findings from the UN Environment Programme that “active government policy to trigger the wholesale expansion of clean‐energy industries is a key driver of low‐carbon employment opportunities.” In particular, some important policies reiterated in this study are “setting ambitious renewable energy targets, increasing funding for R&D, creating technology testing facilities and centres of excellence, introducing economic support mechanisms such as feed‐in tariffs, phasing out subsidies for carbon‐intensive industries, and putting a price on carbon emissions.”

The market has responded in countries that are implementing such policies (i.e. Germany and the UK). If these countries and others implement stronger policies, the job growth is expected to increase much further.

The studies keep coming — if we put more money into emerging clean technology, especially renewable energy, more jobs will be created all around the world.

This is a global and a local matter, and action on both levels will create greater benefits for all.

About the Author

Zachary Shahan spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.

Matthew

Germany has the best feed in tariff in the world right now and they have the strongest economy. They are also shutting down their nuke energy as well. Why is it so hard for some people to just get the facts, why do some people have problems letting go of the past, there is no profit there.
- http://cleantechnica.com/ Zachary Shahan
  
  Well said. Great comments
Matthew

Lets see, economists do studies like this one, and you couch potatoes sit around thinking you are smarter cause you sit around doing nothing. That makes sense.
John

Since the authors readily admit “All such data is highly uncertain and is based on sets of assumptions that, as technologies and technology markets mature, may prove errant.” Any assumptions and predictions should be taken with a grain of salt, but still it’s worth pursuing green jobs.
John

Since the authors readily admit “All such data is highly uncertain and is based on sets of assumptions that, as technologies and technology markets mature, may prove errant.” Any assumptions and predictions should be taken with a grain of salt, but still it’s worth pursuing green jobs.
Spain

Ask Spain how that’s working out for them with their 16% unemployment and more investment in “green jobs” than anybody. I read a study last week that every “green job” created costs 2.2 real jobs.
Spain

Ask Spain how that’s working out for them with their 16% unemployment and more investment in “green jobs” than anybody. I read a study last week that every “green job” created costs 2.2 real jobs.
- Anonymous
  
  I would be interested to know how new jobs in renewable energy cancel other “real” jobs. Also I would like to know how the bank fraud recession, and the resulting stock market crash since 2007, causing high unemployment around the world can be used to blame renewable energy, which is the fastest growing source of new jobs in the world? It is one thing to make baseless assertions, but something else to make those assertions believable.
  - Anonymous
    
    yeah, seriously, the claim that green jobs kill more dirty energy jobs is ridiculous. investing in green energy has a greater net effect on jobs than investing in any other energy sector.

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Green Economy = More Jobs