green jobs

By Sophie Yeo - Carbon Brief, January 4, 2017

Tackling climate change is good for the economy, good for business and good for people. This is the narrative often pushed out by campaigners, researchers and governments around the world.

But while measures to curb emissions and reduce the impacts of rising temperatures will be good for the many, the few who work in industries affected by climate policies risk losing their livelihoods as the economy leans increasingly upon renewable energy.

Around the world, there is a growing movement demanding a “just transition” for the workforce, so that workers are not left in the cold as fossil fuels become consigned to the past.

Peabody and the Navajo tribe

Arizona’s Navajo tribe is one example of a community already fighting for a just transition. This Native American group signed a lease in 1964 allowing Peabody Energy, America’s largest coal company, to mine for coal on reservation lands. Now, 50 years later, many are battling against the impacts of this deal.

When they signed the lease, the company agreed to “employ Navajo Indians when available in all positions for which…they are qualified”. Since then, Peabody has been a major employer of tribe members — 90% of the 430-person workforce of its Kayenta mine are native people.

Yet, while Peabody has provided jobs and money, poverty rates on the Navajo Nation Reservation are more than twice as high as the Arizona state average, and benefits have come at the expense of the local environment.

The Navajo tribe has seen their water sources dwindle as Peabody has used the reservation’s aquifer to turn coal into slurry and pump it down a pipeline. Coal plants surrounding the reservation have polluted the air, clouding the view of the nearby Grand Canyon and other national parks. It is also a source of CO2, the primary contributor of human-caused climate change.

Members of the Navajo tribe, alongside the Hopi tribe that also lives in the area, are calling for a “just transition” away from coal — one that will see old jobs tied to the polluting coal industry replaced with clean and profitable work.

One group, the Black Mesa Water Coalition, is trying to create economic opportunities that will help to release the community from its reliance on coal. For instance, they have tried to revive the traditional Navajo wool market, developing partnerships with wool buyers and organising an annual Wool Buy.

It has also started a solar project, which aims to install a series of 20MW to 200MW solar installations on abandoned coal mining land, transforming the reservation’s old role as an energy provider.

The idea has gone global. In Ghana, for instance, the government has developed a programme to plant more trees, simultaneously improving the landscape, providing jobs, and offering a diversified source of livelihoods for farmers. Peasant farmers and the rural unemployed were involved in planting species such as teak, eucalyptus, cassia and mahogany, generating 12,595 full-time jobs.

In Port Augusta, a town of 14,000 people in South Australia, there is a plan underway to install a solar thermal plant to replace the town’s coal industry. This became even more urgent after the Alinta power station announced that it would close, potentially putting 250 jobs at risk.

By David Ridley - Post 16 Educator, 2017

On 26th November 2016, a conference was held to celebrate The Lucas Plan, ‘a pioneering effort by workers at the arms company Lucas Aerospace to retain jobs by proposing alternative, socially useful applications of the company’s technology and their own skills. It remains one of the most radical and forward thinking attempts ever made by workers to take the steering wheel and directly drive the direction of change’.

The day began with a screening of Steve Sprung’s documentary The Plan, a work in progress which tells the story through interviews and archival footage of the Lucas Plan. Already the film cleverly and and emotionally conveys both the social and historical context within which the Lucas Plan was created, and its ongoing importance for today’s situation.

The 52-page summary of the Lucas Plan report show Harold Wilson, Labour Prime Minister from 1964 to 1970, ‘lubricated’ the ‘white heat of technological change’ in heavy industries, leading to the ‘burning up’ of thousands of jobs and to structural unemployment. In his plenary speech, Phil Asquith, a key member of the Lucas Aerospace Combine, described how the trade union movement at the time failed to offer effective resistance to the two major threats of structural unemployment and globalisation.

The Combine Committees were a direct response to the corporate mergers and rationalisations of the 1970s. These mergers and rationalisations were making it easier to overcome existing forms of workplace organisation, which were at that point still based on geographical and craft divisions. Mick Coomey recounted the situation at that time as one in which different unions all negotiated at different times, often undermining each other, all operating with their own immovable, often undemocratic, structures.

The Combine was an attempt to overcome these divisions by appealing to the common interest of workers within Lucas Aerospace. They ‘set up a series of advisory services’ including advice on pensions provisions and safety in the use of new equipment. The Combine also produced its own ‘four page illustrated newspaper’ which was distributed bimonthly to 13,000 manual and staff workers.

But the most significant achievement of the Combine was the creation of the Corporate Plan. Formulated after a meeting with the late Tony Benn, who suggested its creation, the ‘object of the Corporate Plan [was] twofold. Firstly to protect our members’ right to work by prioritising a range of alternative products on which they could become engaged in the event of further cutbacks in the aerospace industry. Secondly to ensure that among the alternative products proposed are a number which would be socially useful to the community at large’.

By Eskedar Gessesse, et. al. - Blue Green Alliance, January 2017

The following text is by Elizabeth Perry, Work and Climate Change Report, February 3, 2017:

Following on the January 2017 report US Energy and Employment  from the U.S. Department of Energy, more evidence of the healthy growth of the clean energy industry comes in a report by the Environmental Defense Fund Climate Corps and Meister consultants.  Now Hiring: The Growth of America’s Clean Energy and Sustainability Jobs compiles the latest statistics from diverse sources, and concludes that “sustainability” accounts for an estimated 4.5 million jobs (up from 3.4 million in 2011) in the U.S. in 2015. Sustainability jobs are defined as those in energy efficiency and renewable energy, as well as waste reduction, natural resources conservation and environmental education, vehicle manufacturing, public sector, and corporate sustainability jobs.

Statistics drill down to wages and working conditions – for example, average wages for energy efficiency jobs are almost $5,000 above the national median, and wages for solar workers are above the national median of $17.04 per hour. Comparing clean energy with the fossil fuel industry, the report states that the 1.4 million jobs in energy efficiency construction and installation alone is more than double the number of workers in fossil fuel mining, extraction and electric power generation combined. Now Hiring states that for every $1 million invested in building retrofits and industrial efficiency, 8 direct or indirect jobs are created; in comparison, 3 are created by a comparable investment in the fossil fuel industry. This final comparison of job multiplier effect is based on “Green versus brown: Comparing the employment impacts of energy efficiency, renewable energy, and fossil fuels using an input-output model” by Heidi Garrett Pelletier at PERI, and appears in the February 2017 issue of Economic Modelling.

Read the report (Link).

By Brian Ashley, et. al. - One Million Climate Jobs - December 2016

The One Million Climate Jobs Campaign is an alliance of labour, social movements and popular organisations in South Africa that is campaigning for the creation of a million climate jobs as part of a collective approach to the crisis of unemployment and climate change. The Campaign was launched in 2011 and since then has been mobilising thousands of South Africans around real solutions to slowing down climate change, protecting the natural environment, improving the quality of life for all and moving towards a sustainable development path. Climate change will exacerbate inequality and poverty because it reduces access to food, water, energy and housing. Thus it is vital that social justice struggles around these issues incorporate struggles around climate change.

This booklet is a follow-up, six years later, to the first booklet that was produced in 2011. It is based on well- researched solutions for how South Africa can immediately begin a just transition, away from the Minerals-Energy Complex that continues to dominate the South African capitalist economy, to a low carbon economy in which the basic needs of communities are met in an equitable, sustainable and affordable way.

It recognizes that in these six years there have been many developments – for instance, renewable energy is now firmly established as part of the energy mix (although still a minor part); retrofitting buildings, and the development of environmentally friendly construction methods, is being developed, and the Rapid Bus Transit system is being slowly implemented in some municipalities.

But most of these solutions are being pursued within the logic of the market. It is not possible, we would argue, within these market parameters, to respond adequately to the enormous challenges facing us – what is needed is a publicly-driven solution for the shift to a sustainable, low-carbon future. The research that this booklet is based on begins to set out what such a transition could look like. We hope that it will be an important contribution to the ongoing work of building a political movement to struggle around these issues.

Download (PDF).

By Binnu Jeyakumar - Pembina Institute, November 2016

Alberta has a meaningful plan to enable the growth of a clean energy industry, with commitment to 30% of electricity generated by renewable sources by 2030, and phasing out pollution from coal-fired generation. A portion of the anticipated revenues from the province’s economy-wide carbon levy will be used to enable these efforts. This provides a great opportunity for sustainable employment growth in the clean energy sector. This is in line with the global trends of declining investment and employment in the coal industry, while investment and employment in the renewable sector expands.

The Pembina Institute has conducted an analysis of the employment potential in the renewable energy and energy efficiency sectors in Alberta. Data was collected through literature reviews and from organizations involved in development of projects. The analysis used conservative estimates where there was uncertainty. The results are nevertheless encouraging and paint a positive picture for Albertans.

• In Alberta, investing in renewable sources of electricity and energy efficiencyalone would generate more jobs than those lost through the retirement of coalpower ( Figure 1).
• With a high and sustained pace of renewables growth, there are sustained levelsof employment for those engaged in related equipment installations.
• Additional investment in community energy can increase the employmentpotential by 30-50%.
• Long-term investments in modernizing infrastructure, the grid and ourelectricity system will result in further job creation with a wide diversity of skills,and in fields that are likely to see sustained growth.

Read the report (Link).

By staff - Australian Council of Trade Unions - November 2016

The ACTU is primarily concerned with workers, their rights, their welfare and their future. A just and civil society is one where everyone shares in the wealth of the nation but it is also one where economic costs are equally shared.

Transitioning an industry is a massive economic and social disruption. History shows that this has often been done poorly in Australia, with workers and communities bearing the brunt of such transitions - suffering hardship, unemployment and generations of economic and social depression.

Research in the textiles, clothing and footwear (TCF) and car manufacturing industries shows, for example, that only one third of workers find equivalent full time work following their retrenchment, while one third move into lower quality jobs (lower wage, lower job status or into part-time and casual work) and one third are locked out of the labour force altogether.

International experience however shows that a transition can be done equitably, achieve positive outcomes for workers, save communities and forge new areas of industrial growth and prosperity.

Australia is currently facing one such transition in the coal-fired electricity sector. If Australia manages this transition well, the nation would have a structured and equitable approach that could apply to any industry undergoing similar change in the future.

At last year’s Paris climate conference, Australia alongside 194 countries, committed to limit global warming to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels. As part of this historic agreement, unions successfully achieved recognition of the need for a ‘Just Transition’ that supports the most affected workers obtain new decent and secure jobs in a clean energy economy.

While Australia’s international obligations will require a range of complementary policies that focus on emission reduction across a number of sectors of the economy, as the largest contributor to Australia’s emissions, effective reform of the electricity sector has been identified as a key step in tackling climate change.

Download (PDF).

By secretariat - United Nations, October 26, 2016

This technical paper provides an overview of the work undertaken under the Convention on a just transition of the workforce, and the creation of decent work and quality jobs (hereinafter referred to as just transition) in the context of the impact of the implementation of response measures. The paper also presents the general concept of just transition, including the drivers and objectives of such transitions, andthen discusses the linkages between just transition and the impacts of the implementation of climate change mitigation policies. It also provides guidance on how to approach just transition at the national level. This technical paper draws upon relevant information contained in:

• (1) reports on the work of the forum on the impact of the implementation of response measures, as well as submissions, presentations and statements made by Parties and observer organizations during previous sessions of the Conference of the Parties and the subsidiary bodies from 2008 to 2015;
• (2) national inventory reports, national communications, biennial reports and biennial update reports submitted by Parties;
• (3) publications by experts, international organizations and research institutes; and
• (4) inputs from the International Labour Organization

Read the report (PDF).