Fighting global warming will create 8 million jobs

According to a study, the ecological transition will generate millions of jobs. A model helps to better understand how they will be distributed locally and globally. The challenge will be to retrain and relocate workers

(photo: FreePhotos via Pixabay) Many fear that the transition to the green could cause the loss of many jobs. While some jobs disappear, it is true that many new opportunities will emerge. And the research shows, numbers in hand: according to a study published in the journal One Earth, the adoption of policies to keep the temperature well below 2 ° C could bring about 8 million new jobs to the same level. global. Precisely for this reason it is important to have well-structured policies and strategies to help workers in the transition from old to new technologies.

Changing the world of work

The study is based on a new model, created by scientists from the University of British Columbia in Canada, together with the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change in Milan. The model is based on production and labor data from 50 countries around the world. The simulations clearly highlight that the necessary - and urgent - operations to combat climate change will also lead to a revolution in the world of work.

By 2050, in fact, more than 80% of jobs linked to energy will be in the renewable sector. In particular, solar and wind power will be associated with 84% of jobs in the field, nuclear by 5%, while 11% will still relate to fossil energy.

From fossils to renewables

Wind and solar energy, therefore, represent the largest piece of the cake and will provide millions of new jobs. Scientists estimate that the loss of places linked to the fossil will be about 9 million places globally, assuming that they are able to stay well below 2 ° C, according to the Paris agreements. "Jobs associated with fossil fuels could significantly decrease from 12.6 million to 3.1 million," the authors write in the study, "the decline relates to fossil fuel mining operations (coal mining, oil exploration and production and gas) which account for 80% of job loss cases ".

The jobs that will be lost will, however, be counterbalanced by as many new opportunities. According to the model, approximately 7.7 million new jobs will be created, mainly in the manufacturing sector. The question will be whether to understand how the nascent positions are distributed, since their displacement is not uniform. For this reason, it is important to evaluate, both locally and more widely, how to reorganize the work and facilitate the retraining of staff and access to new jobs. In this sense, the study provides a concrete tool to estimate the number of new jobs that could be created and in which sectors. These and other assessments could be very useful, the authors point out, for policy makers, institutions, non-governmental agencies and trade unions, to understand if it is possible to reallocate workers and how.

If China loses more jobs

Currently China, already heavily committed to renewables, could have a substantial loss of fossil-related jobs, while for the United States, North Africa and the Middle East the balance is tipped it could lean towards a positive balance, due to the greater expansion of renewable energies. China has made a big leap forward in recent years, as the authors point out, highlighting that changes can be very rapid. "The data on solar photovoltaic systems show that although Chinese companies only entered the market in 2000, 20 years later than those who took the first steps in the sector," the authors write in the study, "they now own more than half of all production plants ”.


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Topics

Climate Energy nuclear energy solar energy Jobs globalData.fldTopic = "Climate, Energy , nuclear energy, solar energy, Work "

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