Researchers predict uneven job growth in the U.S. due to its transition to a net-zero carbon future, emphasizing the need for fair transition policies and the potential for increased gender equality in the renewable energy sector.
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
this kind of climate mythology is why i don’t subscribe
I agree. The article refers to “new policies to guarantee a fair and equitable transition.” Who determines what’s “fair and equitable?” All of these papers implicitly assume that these are a known given when they are inherently unknowable. Also the argument that decarbonization brings consistent jobs growth is a classic example of the “the broken window” fallacy that any Econ 101 student shouldn’t make. Of course decarbonization creates jobs, but they are subsidized either directly or indirectly by the manufacturers of things that people actually want to buy. Carbonization doesn’t create any more net jobs at all, but it does destroy wealth. It makes people poorer because it forces them to purchase a more expensive product than they would ever do on their own if they were not coerced or bribed (with someone else’s money) into doing it. I don’t know who pays the authors to write these papers, but I suspect that they are paid for with grants from the government. I call these papers welfare for PhD’s because no one who had to lay out their own money would ever pay the authors to write them.
“The USA, alongside many countries, is planning for a low-carbon future, …”
The ‘USA’ isn’t planning for anything. The USA is an intangible abstraction. There are, however, liberal politicians in the country who have been persuaded by alarmist lobbyists that a low-carbon future is desirable. They are using their autocratic political power to try to force changes onto the citizens of the country. Not everyone agrees with, or approves of the changes. With a different administration, the direction of change can be altered quickly. The assertions of alarmists are contentious at best, and the fact that they avoid public panel discussions is indicative that they are not comfortable trying to defend their claims against their peers.
“This move to renewable energy sources is essential to curb global heating, …”
That is the essence of the belief system of alarmists. However, there are many reasons to question the assertion. It is difficult to get past the virtual monopoly of the so-called ‘news’ media; therefore, many people believe that it is “settled science,” which is an oxymoron.
Mixing economics (the Dismal Science) with climatology is a recipe for poor results. Anyone with experience creating non-trivial computer models knows that there are numerous ways to tune a model to get results that are ‘correct’ — as subjectively determined by those writing the code.
“They found that decarbonization brings consistent job growth.”
They found no such thing. That would require the events to have taken place, and examine the resulting statistics. Instead, they used economic models that, unsurprisingly, rationalized decarbonization as being good for the economy, and gender equity. If I were a cynic I might suspect a sub rosa agenda.