GENEVA (AN) — Renewable energy jobs almost doubled in a decade led by growing opportunities in China, the European Union, Brazil, the United States and India.
Globally, the number of jobs in solar, bioenergy and other forms of renewable energy reached 13.7 million in 2022, up by 7.3 million from a decade earlier.
There was a 1 million increase just since 2021, according to new estimates on Thursday from the International Labor Organization and International Renewable Energy Agency, or IRENA.
The estimates provide further indication that nations could still fulfill the Paris climate treaty's most ambitious target for limiting warming.
Despite lessening chances for sticking to the 1.5° limit, there's been a "record growth of key clean energy technologies," the International Energy Agency reported on Tuesday.
Paris-based IEA's update of its Net Zero Roadmap report showed quick action could rescue the lagging 1.5° target. "The path to 1.5° has narrowed, but clean energy growth is keeping it open," it says.
Leaders of the Geneva-based ILO and U.A.E.-based IRENA emphasized that quality, not just quantity, matters when it comes to renewable energy jobs.
Despite the rapid growth in these jobs in the past decade, the pace of investment in energy transition technologies must be "much faster" to create "many more millions of jobs," IRENA's Director-General Francesco La Camera said.
ILO Director-General Gilbert Houngbo called for nations to craft more policies for "inclusive macroeconomic growth, sustainable enterprises, skills development, other active labor market interventions, social protection, occupational safety and health and other rights at work."
The report finds almost two-thirds of all the jobs are in Asia, where China accounts for as much as 41% per cent of them.
'We know what we need to do'
Demand for fossil fuels will have to decline by at least 25% as clean energy replaces the use of coal, oil and natural gas this decade "to bend the emissions curve sharply downwards by 2030" and meet the 1.5° target, IEA concludes.
“Keeping alive the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5° requires the world to come together quickly. The good news is we know what we need to do – and how to do it,” said IEA's Executive Director Fatih Birol. "Strong international cooperation is crucial to success. Governments need to separate climate from geopolitics, given the scale of the challenge at hand.”
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres chastised the world last week for being so far off-track from the Paris Agreement's obligations. In 2015, nations committed to hold warming to no more than 2° Celsius above pre-industrial levels, or preferably 1.5°.
Without an abrupt phaseout of fossil fuels, Guterres said, the world is will warm by 2.6° to 2.8° this century.
Energy-related carbon emissions hit a record high of 37 billion metric tons in 2022, or 1% above pre-pandemic levels, IEA reports, and are set to peak this decade "even without any new climate policies."
'Sequencing the decline of fossil fuel supply'
IEA, which is mainly supported by the 38-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, says the speed at which new solar, wind and other clean energy technologies are being rolled out is lessening the demand for coal, oil and natural gas.
"This is encouraging, but not nearly enough for the 1.5° goal," it says. "Well-designed policies, such as the early retirement or repurposing of coal-fired power plants, are key to facilitate declines in fossil fuel demand and create additional room for clean energy to expand."
The report lines up with IEA's stance since 2021 that the Paris treaty goals cannot be met if nations continue to pursue new exploration projects for fossil fuels.
That has put the autonomous intergovernmental organization at odds with the Vienna-based oil cartel OPEC, which cautions that shutting down the fossil fuels era too quickly would "lead to energy chaos on a potentially unprecedented scale, with dire consequences for economies and billions of people across the world."
IEA calls for tripling the amount of installed renewable energy capacity to 11,000 gigawatts by 2030. It also acknowledges that something of a transition is needed away from fossil fuels.
Hitting net zero
"Continued investment is required in existing oil and gas assets and already approved projects," the report says. "Sequencing the decline of fossil fuel supply investment and the increase in clean energy investment is vital if damaging price spikes or supply gluts are to be avoided."
The real audience for the report is the U.N.'s climate summit due to get underway in late November. Hosted by the United Arab Emirates in Dubai, the summit will show just how serious nations are about walking the talk.
At least 80% of the emissions cuts needed by 2030 could be done by "ramping up renewables, improving energy efficiency, cutting methane emissions and increasing electrification with technologies available today," IEA says.
Global emissions would be expected to hit net zero – an equal balance between what's produced and removed from the atmosphere – by 2050. That also would require annual clean energy funding to grow to US$4.5 trillion a year by the early 2030s, up from US$1.8 trillion this year.
This story has been updated with additional details.
