Dr Megan Clark, Chief Executive and CSIRO Board member.

Growing the green collar economy - presentation by Dr Megan Clark

Employment, economies and transforming industries

Our modelling shows that the biggest impact of the green economy will be the shift of jobs as some industries decline and others emerge. We will see an increase in jobs in the services area, such as health care, mainly as a response to population increases. 

Australia will have to mount a massive training and retraining program for trades people to raise an army of green collar workers to support the low carbon economy. But many of those workers would have held down jobs anyway.

One of the key questions to understand is whether imposition of aggressive emissions reductions will reduce overall employment.

Our modelling shows that even in aggressive scenarios of emissions reductions that 2.5 to 3.3 million jobs can be generated by the economy over the next 20 years. That’s because economic growth and environmental sustainability are not mutually exclusive and population growth will create job opportunities.

We used two models to create virtual future economies to test the impact on jobs of a rapid switch to a low carbon economy. The work, led by Dr Heinz Schandl, was commissioned by the Dusseldorp Skills Forum, an independent not-for-profit body.

One model – Monash University’s Multiregional Forecasting-Green model – is a powerful tool for analysing environmental policies. It’s a “monetary economy” model that simulates activity in 52 industries Australia-wide for each year from 2005 to 2050. It lets you fine tune parameters like energy sources and different methods of greenhouse gas accounting. The model assumes carbon capture and storage are feasible and that nuclear power is a non-starter.

In our own modelling we modelled two scenarios a “deep cuts scenario” where carbon dioxide emissions are cut by 60 per cent with no major tax reform and the “carbon neutral” scenario, emissions are cut by 100 per cent with a one-off tax measure to boost employment and the workforce participation rate. About a third of the emission cuts between 2040 and 2050 are achieved through buying international carbon credits.

We also ran our own Australian Stocks and Flows Framework (ASFF) model. It is a “physical economy” model that views the world as stocks - natural resources such as water, fuel and biodiversity – and flows – demand for food and housing, for example. It gauges the impact of policies on people, employment, food, mineral resources, energy and CO2 emissions.

We simulated a “Factor 4” economy with policies aimed at halving energy and material inputs and doubling industry outputs. We also simulated a future with no such policies.

Both models show that predicted economic growth would be decoupled from environmental pressure. The transition to sustainability had little or no effect on national employment. The economy and employment would continue to grow while gross emissions would fall by two-thirds rather than doubling.
 
The Monash model forecast the creation of around 2.5 million jobs over the 20 years to 2025 and our own model.

The results are outlined in a report, “Growing the green collar economy” and they belied the notion that environmental sustainability would come at an overall cost to employment.

The financial crisis and how we emerge from it, the threat of climate change and the greatest human migration in our history are creating a confluence of forces driving a renewed focus on sustainable development and innovation.

The urgent need for urban design from the solar collectors on roofs to house design to precinct design to city design will create opportunities for jobs from nanotechnology and new materials to architectural design and energy engineering to large scale infrastructure design.

Our research is reflecting what we are seeing starting to happen on the ground – what many companies already know from experience – green innovation can make good business sense. It also shows that jobs will shift at lightning speed to new areas and we must be ready with our training. 

The nations that will emerge stronger from the crisis will have tackled the issues of national competiveness and sustainability and ensured long term security to food, water and energy.

Our researchers and their partners are working to improve the quality of life for all Australians and indeed humanity and generate jobs while doing our bit to save the planet.

Thank you.

See also: Reading the greenhouse future - presentation by Dr Megan Clark.