BBC News article, UN forecasts boom in ‘green jobs’, provides a very positive outlook forecasting millions of new jobs worldwide over the next few decades as a result of the development of alternative energy technologies.
This news comes from a report, ‘Green Jobs: Towards Decent Work in a Sustainable, Low-Carbon World’, commissioned and funded by the UN’s Environment Programme (Unep). “It says the manufacture, installation and maintenance of solar panels should add 6.3 million jobs by 2030, while wind power should add more than two million jobs.”
The new jobs will depend on a shift of subsidies from oil and natural gas to wind, solar and geothermal power but could also include the expansion of recycling and and making environmentally firendly vehicles.
Late next year, delegates from around the world will attend a UN meeting in Copenhagen to reach a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol to control climate change. Unep Director, Achim Steiner, said the movement toward green jobs would happen whether there was an agreement or not, as resources like metals, oil and gas are becoming more expensive to find.
