Prospects for green industry jobs
By IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON
The United States is expected to experience steady job growth as it moves towards a net-zero economy, but this growth will not be evenly distributed, according to recent research.
This research, carried out by a team
from Imperial College London and
published in the journal Nature Climate Change,
highlights the necessity for specific states to implement new policies to
guarantee a fair and equitable transition.
The USA, alongside many countries, is
planning for a low-carbon future, where energy production releases little to no
carbon dioxide, and what is released is removed from the atmosphere, creating
net-zero carbon emissions. This has been backed by new policies, including the
2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which includes large investments into domestic
clean energy production.
This move to renewable energy sources is
essential to curb global heating, but its impact on employment is uncertain.
Now, researchers from Imperial College London have
carried out an analysis to understand what kinds of jobs are likely to be
created at a state level, and the societal implications of different scenarios
for low carbon transitions in the US electricity system.
Diverse Impacts on Employment Across States
They found that decarbonization brings
consistent job growth. However, major fossil fuel-producing states need to
prepare for fewer mining jobs by looking to create other opportunities.
The analysis shows lowest-skilled workers
will experience more uncertain employment outcomes, so states need to plan
carefully to make sure the energy transition is ‘just’ – fair to all. Sizable
new opportunities will be available to workers with some training though, in
the utilities and construction sectors.
Gender Equality and the Renewable Energy Sector
The team also found that the renewable energy
sector generally employs more women, which could boost gender equality in
fossil fuel-dependent states, but not enough to disrupt the national gender
status quo.
First author Judy Jingwei Xie, from the
Centre for Environmental Policy and the Grantham Institute at Imperial, said:
“Overall, our analysis is good news: recent policies such as the Inflation
Reduction Act will lead to consistent job growth. There are some states
currently very reliant on fossil fuel production that could lose out, but there
are tools available for them to get ahead of the problem and take advantage of
the situation to turn themselves into leaders of the clean energy revolution.
“By boosting retraining opportunities for the
existing workforce and training young people in low-carbon technologies,
traditional coal-producing states like Wyoming could put themselves at the
forefront. The new American Climate Corps can provide these opportunities if it
manages to deliver the targeted compensatory support to communities in need.”
Methodology and Future Applications
To conduct the analysis, the team used the
Regional Energy Development System (ReEDS) energy system model developed and
maintained by the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory. This includes 70
detailed future energy system scenarios, which they fed into a model of how
these would impact employment across states based on their energy profile and
demographics.
The wide range of scenarios included the US
Long-Term Strategy, which aims for a 100% reduction of electricity system
carbon emissions by 2035 and showed consistently positive job growth. The team
has made their code openly available, allowing integration of new policies, and
the ability for models to be created for other countries and regions, as long
as the right input data is available.
Co-author Dr. Iain Staffell, from the Centre
for Environmental Policy at Imperial, said: “A lot of new stuff needs to be
built to transform the energy system globally, and the Inflation Reduction Act
in the US has created some key conditions for big companies to make this shift.
“The USA and China are ahead in this regard,
and if we in the UK want a part of this boon, we need similar policies to
incentivize the rapid shift to clean energy, which would boost employment and
progress towards global goals of reducing carbon emissions.”
Reference: “Distributional labour challenges
and opportunities for decarbonizing the US power system” by Judy Jingwei Xie,
Melissa Martin, Joeri Rogelj and Iain Staffell, 2 November 2023, Nature Climate Change.
DOI:
10.1038/s41558-023-01802-5