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14.09.2009: Saving the climate equals 8 million jobs in the power industry
Saving the climate equals 8 million jobs in the power industry
News Release of EREC and Greenpeace
Brussels/Canberra, Australia, 14 September 2009 – The renewable
power industry
could support 6.9 million jobs by 2030, if world leaders seize the opportunity
to invest in a
greener future by securing a strong treaty at December’s Climate
Summit in Copenhagen,
according to a report launched today by Greenpeace International and the
European
Renewable Energy Council (EREC).
A switch from coal to renewable electricity generation will not just avoid
10 billion tons of
CO2 emissions, but will create 2.7 million more jobs by 2030 than if we
continue business
as usual. Conversely, the global coal industry - which currently supports
about 4.7 million
employees worldwide - is likely to contract by more than 1.4 million jobs
by 2030, due to
rationalisation measures in existing coal mines.
The report: ‘Working for the Climate: Renewable Energy & The
Green Job [R]evolution’ is
based on Greenpeace’s Energy [R]evolution(1) and research from the
Institute for
Sustainable Futures (ISF) at the University of Technology Sydney (2).
The report shows
that by 2030, 6.9 million people could work for the renewable power industry,
and another
1.1 million jobs would be created due to higher efficiency in electrical
applications (3).
"There are already 450,000 people working in the renewable energy
industry in Europe,
representing a turnover of more than EUR 45 billion. This research proves
that renewable
energy is key to tackling both the climate and economic crises,"
said Christine Lins,
Secretary General of the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC).
“Global leaders can tackle the twin crises of global economic recession
and climate
change head on by investing in renewable energy,” said Sven Teske,
Greenpeace
International’s senior energy expert and lead author of the report.
“For each job lost
in the coal industry the Energy [R]evolution creates three new jobs in
the renewable power
industry. We can choose green jobs and growth or unemployment, ecological
and social
collapse.”
“Now is the time to put in place a ‘just transition’ to
sustainably transform the jobs of today
and develop the decent and green jobs of tomorrow,“ added Guy Ryder,
General
Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). “The
union movement,
as well as the authors of this report, believe ambitious climate action
by world leaders can
and must be a driver for sustainable economic growth and social progress.”
For a full copy of the report please go to:
www.greenpeace.org/greenjobs
or visit www.energyblueprint.info
Notes:
1) In October 2008 Greenpeace International and the European Renewable
Energy Council (EREC) published a
report called Energy [R]evolution: a Sustainable Global Energy Outlook
that sets out a vision for a low-carbon
global energy supply comparing it to the energy projection put forward
by the International Energy Agency (IEA
2007). The report was developed in conjunction with specialists from the
Institute of Technical Thermodynamics at
the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), the Dutch Institute Ecofys and more
than 40 scientists and engineers from
universities, institutes and the renewable energy industry around the
world.
2) Greenpeace & EREC undertook this new study to determine whether
there would be jobs created by this nine-fold
increase in renewable energy, and massive global energy efficiency measures
required for the Energy
[R]evolution by researching jobs in power generation and electrical efficiency
(excluding heating, cooling and
transport).
3) Efficiency to improve building insulation is not included in this number
and would be additional.
Source: www.erec.org