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 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 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.
"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 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 Revolution 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.
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