Green Jobs Replacing Lost Fossil Fuel Positions – Report

The World Watch Institute (WWI) released a report last week stating that an estimated 2.3 million people worldwide have renewable energy jobs in the industry or its supplier industries. 

In contrast, the report says coal, oil and natural gas industries require fewer workers year after year, as high-cost production equipment replaces human workers. Hundreds of thousands of jobs in these sectors have been cut in China, the U.S., Germany, the U.K. an South Africa in the last two decades, the report claims, despite increased production in some cases.

In the United States alone, coal industry employment has fallen by half in the last 20 years, despite a one-third increase in production. 

"Renewables are poised to tackle our energy crisis and create millions of new jobs worldwide," according to Worldwatch Senior Researcher Michael Renner. "Meanwhile, fossil fuel jobs are increasingly becoming fossils themselves, as coal mining communities and others worry about their livelihoods." 

Germany Spain and Denmark have emerged as leaders in renewable energy development and green jobs as a result of strong government support, the report says. Support for renewables on the state level is largely responsible for the creation of U.S. green jobs. The U.S. renewable energy industry employed about 200,000 people directly in 2006 and another 246,000 indirectly, according to the WWI figures.

Globally the solar thermal industry employs at least 624,000 people, the wind power industry 300,000, and the solar PV industry 170,000. More than 1 million people work in the biomass and biofuels sector, while small-scale hydropower employs 39,000 individuals and geothermal employs 25,000.

WWI said these figures are likely to grow as private investment and government support for alternative energy sources increase. Some projections show that global wind power employment will increase to as much as 2.1 million in 2030 and 2.8 million in 2050. Similar projections estimate that worldwide solar PV production alone could create as many as 6.3 million jobs by 2030.