Feb 7, 2025 07:59 AM
https://www.newstatesman.com/spotlight/s...ron-graham
EXCERPTS: Is the green transition, the move to net zero, to be billed as a project to restore the natural environment, to conserve the flora and fauna of a planet withering under the weight of man-made industry? Or is it a catalyst for creating millions of high-skilled, productive, green jobs of the future, for regional industrial renaissance and green tech, for public infrastructure upgrades and an investment-led effort towards national renewal via net zero?
In choosing between what we might call a more conservationist, nature-based approach, and a jobs-and-skills approach, Starmer, we were told, would prefer to orient towards the latter.
[...] But we are now more than six months into the Labour administration. It is feeling more and more awkward to call this a “new” government. And rather than a re-skilling or redeployment of a carbon-intensive workforce into the green “industries of the future”, the decline of traditional manufacturing has continued apace and even accelerated. This decline is yet to be accompanied by a flurry of parallel, net zero job creation.
[...] You can’t let go of one rope before you’ve grabbed onto another,” says Sharon Graham ... “If we are going to transfer to renewable energy then we need to have the infrastructure in place, and we need to know where the jobs are. Because there’s no doubt – you could transfer oil and gas workers to wind manufacturing. You could have commensurate jobs. There may be some different skillsets, but there’s nothing insurmountable.”
But that kind of joined-up effort is yet to appear. Graham has opposed Labour’s cancellation of new oil and gas licensing because workers in the sector – which is well-paid, safe and highly skilled compared with jobs in the maintenance of offshore wind facilities – risk becoming “the miners of the net zero”.
“We’re going to lose the jobs in Britain, lose the industry in Britain, not create any jobs in Britain, and then be reliant on other countries for our energy”, she says. “They haven’t got a plan for new jobs, and we’re still importing oil.”
It needn’t be this way. As an advanced economy, we are still using and consuming steel in vast quantities, not to mention running a gas-reliant grid that will continue to rely on emergency dispatchable gas generation even beyond the net zero target date. Meanwhile, glass, cement, concrete and a whole variety of chemicals all remain essential to modern life. And all still rely on carbon-based materials and energy in their production processes.
Green hydrogen, green steel and sustainable aviation fuel are emerging energy sources that will develop rapidly in the near future as demand for essential goods with a lower carbon footprint intensifies. But they are not here yet, or at least not always at prices that would make them competitive.
In the meantime, we are in danger of losing the jobs, skills, expertise, institutions and industries that could make British versions of these green industries a success. The demand is here, but the jobs of the future are being created elsewhere... (MORE - details)
EXCERPTS: Is the green transition, the move to net zero, to be billed as a project to restore the natural environment, to conserve the flora and fauna of a planet withering under the weight of man-made industry? Or is it a catalyst for creating millions of high-skilled, productive, green jobs of the future, for regional industrial renaissance and green tech, for public infrastructure upgrades and an investment-led effort towards national renewal via net zero?
In choosing between what we might call a more conservationist, nature-based approach, and a jobs-and-skills approach, Starmer, we were told, would prefer to orient towards the latter.
[...] But we are now more than six months into the Labour administration. It is feeling more and more awkward to call this a “new” government. And rather than a re-skilling or redeployment of a carbon-intensive workforce into the green “industries of the future”, the decline of traditional manufacturing has continued apace and even accelerated. This decline is yet to be accompanied by a flurry of parallel, net zero job creation.
[...] You can’t let go of one rope before you’ve grabbed onto another,” says Sharon Graham ... “If we are going to transfer to renewable energy then we need to have the infrastructure in place, and we need to know where the jobs are. Because there’s no doubt – you could transfer oil and gas workers to wind manufacturing. You could have commensurate jobs. There may be some different skillsets, but there’s nothing insurmountable.”
But that kind of joined-up effort is yet to appear. Graham has opposed Labour’s cancellation of new oil and gas licensing because workers in the sector – which is well-paid, safe and highly skilled compared with jobs in the maintenance of offshore wind facilities – risk becoming “the miners of the net zero”.
“We’re going to lose the jobs in Britain, lose the industry in Britain, not create any jobs in Britain, and then be reliant on other countries for our energy”, she says. “They haven’t got a plan for new jobs, and we’re still importing oil.”
It needn’t be this way. As an advanced economy, we are still using and consuming steel in vast quantities, not to mention running a gas-reliant grid that will continue to rely on emergency dispatchable gas generation even beyond the net zero target date. Meanwhile, glass, cement, concrete and a whole variety of chemicals all remain essential to modern life. And all still rely on carbon-based materials and energy in their production processes.
Green hydrogen, green steel and sustainable aviation fuel are emerging energy sources that will develop rapidly in the near future as demand for essential goods with a lower carbon footprint intensifies. But they are not here yet, or at least not always at prices that would make them competitive.
In the meantime, we are in danger of losing the jobs, skills, expertise, institutions and industries that could make British versions of these green industries a success. The demand is here, but the jobs of the future are being created elsewhere... (MORE - details)
