Based on data from more than a billion members in 43 countries, LinkedIn’s 2024 Global Green Skills Report projects that a full half of the jobs required by the green economy in 2050 will lack qualified candidates. “This data is a wake-up call, and there’s no more time to hit the snooze button,” says Sue Duke, LinkedIn’s vice president of public policy.

The study says that global demand for green talent is currently growing nearly twice as fast as supply, with demand increasing by 11.6% and supply by just 5.6%. The industries stocking up fastest on green expertise are utilities (23% of their job postings require green skills), construction (20.6%) and manufacturing (13%). Last year, demand for green skills grew most in the technology industry, where the energy appetite of artificial intelligence has led to a 60% surge in the share of jobs requiring green skills.

The study lends details and urgency to a transition that’s already been talked to death. A November 2024 blog post from the Smart Prosperity Institute warned that “Canada’s success depends on investing more in green jobs and skills.” Representing business, a Conference Board of Canada report called Teaching Green Skills, released in August 2024, found that Canada’s colleges and universities face grave challenges meeting the demand, including a lack of administrative focus, ongoing disconnects with employers, funding constraints and a shortage of advocates who could drive system change.

A giant advantage for green job seekers

LinkedIn’s deep data offers one positive indicator that could help move the needle. If green upskilling is to succeed, it has to start with talented job seekers wanting to learn complex new skills. Here’s their incentive: LinkedIn’s data finds that the hiring rate for green talent globally is 55% higher than for the general business population. In the United States, that advantage is actually 80% – at least it has been under the Biden administration.

The study found that government policy is a big driver of the green skills revolution. President Joe Biden’s infrastructure-building policies, especially the Inflation Reduction Act, have helped produce an 80-times boost in the share of U.S. workers with building-performance skills, LinkedIn notes. Progress is likely to continue at the state level. And while Trump has vowed to repeal the IRA, calling support for electric cars and wind power “the new green scam,” even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which opposed the IRA under Biden, now says it will defend parts of it. Some 85% of IRA investment funds have gone to Republican states, which will be loath to turn off the taps.

North of the border, building the green skills ecosystem will require a “team Canada” approach in which business, labour, government and educational institutions bury their differences and partner up to get things done – locally, regionally and nationally. Entire industries, from energy and forest products to plumbing and risk management, will have to be re-engineered. Business and post-secondary schools have to work together to create curricula, get more people trained and find the best ways to retrain older workers.

But there’s a bright green light at the end of this tunnel. “We see this as a great opportunity,” says Hem Dholakia, a senior research associate at the Smart Prosperity Institute in Ottawa. The challenges of building these new educational links – consensus-building, creativity and communication – are the same skills required for the energy transition. If Canada can accelerate these twin transitions, Dholakia says it will build an international edge that will make the country a magnet for foreign capital once again. “By putting in the building blocks of a skilled and inclusive workforce, we would be setting ourselves up for long-term economic growth.”

Of course, if Trump goes ahead with his recent threat to impose a 25% tariff on Canadian goods, Canada’s economy could tumble into an immediate recession that would throw off every economic forecast. Even so, that would be all the more reason for Canada to double down on the green economy and focus on international markets.

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That puts the total number of jobs in clean energy at 35 million in 2022, compared to just 32 million in oil, gas and coal. The fossil fuel sector created 1.3 million fewer jobs than it did in 2019. “Solar [photovoltaic] is by far the largest employer, accounting for 4 million jobs, while EVs and batteries were the fastest growing, adding well over 1 million jobs since 2019,” the report says. 

While this shift is happening faster than many had predicted, the IEA warns of holes in the green jobs market that need to be addressed – specifically when it comes to connecting workers with job openings.  

“The unprecedented acceleration that we have seen in clean energy transitions is creating millions of new job opportunities all over the world – but these are not being filled quickly enough,” says IEA executive director Fatih Birol. “Governments, industry and educational institutions need to put in place programs to deliver the expertise needed in the energy sector to keep pace with growing demand, particularly to manufacture and build the clean energy projects necessary to meet our energy and climate goals.” 

In October, the Canadian Renewable Energy Association (CanREA) launched its own job portal, cleanenergyjobs.ca, with postings for everything from plant managers and electrical engineers to financial analysts. “We know that the number of people interested in renewables is higher than it’s ever been, and we have heard from our member companies that there is a crying need for workers, so CanREA has built this website to try to connect those dots,” says Mathieu Côté, director of CanREA’s operations program. 

In November, a non-profit called Invest WindsorEssex launched a website (evcareers.ca) that seeks to link workers in Southwestern Ontario to job opportunities in the electric vehicle (EV) industry. Stellantis and LG Energy Solution have started building their heavily subsidized NextStar battery plant in the area. The facility is expected to have up to 2,500 employees, but the project has also faced questions about the number of South Korean workers that will be hired to fill those positions.  

The IEA has said that the clean energy sector will need to grow at four times the rate of the world’s gross domestic product for the energy transition to be successful. While we haven’t reached that mark yet, investments in clean energy projects have surged ahead of global GDP over the last few years.  

From 2019 to 2022, clean energy investment grew 33%, while the world’s GDP grew 15%, according to the International Monetary Fund.   

While 2023 was not a banner year for green energy stocks, which became overvalued, preliminary data show it was another big year for investing in clean energy overall. The IEA projected that investors would smash previous green investment records, piling US$1.7 trillion into clean energy solutions in 2023, up from US$1.1 trillion in 2022.  

This is still short of the US$4 trillion in clean investment the agency says will be needed to meet net-zero goals, but for every dollar being invested in dirty fossil fuels, the world is now spending $1.70 on clean energy solutions. The dollars have never made so much sense. 

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The made-in-Canada plan seeks to bolster manufacturing at home and secure a place for Canadian firms and products in global supply chains.

Canada’s industrial policy has four tiers of tools: carbon pricing and regulations, investment tax credits, public funds (namely, the Canada Growth Fund and the Canada Infrastructure Bank) and targeted investments in priority sectors. Together with the controversial investment credit for carbon capture, utilization and storage from Budget 2022, the government has now earmarked $83 billion to support Canada’s net-zero industrial policy.

While there has been a lot of focus on tax credits, these measures, as well as accompanying subsidies, do not constitute an industrial strategy on their own. A modern industrial strategy must involve a dynamic process of collaboration with the sector that integrates the tools into a clear strategy.

For example, the tax credits receiving much attention in the IRA are supported by excellent work in the U.S. Department of Energy to set clear targets, organize supply chains and work with industries directly to identify and solve challenges in a dynamic way. The U.S. approach benefits from decades of work to develop the institutional mechanisms for coordinating commercialization strategies between the government and industry.

Canada needs to develop a similar approach: targets and sector tables to hash out clear strategies that organize and focus work in the sectors. Without intentional development of such coordination mechanisms, Budget 2023’s commendable initiatives will risk falling into the Canadian pattern of spreading innovation supports (research funding and R&D and investment tax credits, for example) too thin.

It is difficult to assess whether the proposed tax credits and other measures – such as subsidies for battery plants – address the needs of Canadian businesses, target activities in which Canada can be globally competitive, and trigger private investment at the speed and scale required. A custom industrial policy approach is needed for each sector, reflecting the unique supply-chain challenges and supply/demand barriers to adoption for each solution.

We have proposed three key elements to kick-start industrial policy in Canada and to build capacity for strategic collaboration in government and among other stakeholders.

Goals: A modern, strategic industrial policy should have goals that are concrete economic objectives (or targets) and that refer to the deployment, production and performance of key technologies – for example, the amount of clean hydrogen produced by a specific future date. Goals and milestones should be indexed to a vision of Canada’s place in specific global supply chains.

Public–private partnerships: International best practices in industrial policy underline the key role of robust public–private partnerships in priority sectors, supported by deliberative tables and independent intermediaries. These partnerships would create collaboration clusters at the sector level, which would be used to align strategy, policy and financing.

Government bodies: How can best practices be applied to government institutions in Canada? Institutional innovation is often necessary to build the culture and practice of modern industrial policy with a net-zero focus. Cross-departmental interaction and synergy would be important to set up a new industrial policy process for success. But setting up those processes will take time, and the need to act is urgent, so it is important that government bodies work closely with industry and independent intermediaries to catalyze strategic action now.

While there has been a lot of focus on tax credits, these measures, as well as accompanying subsidies, do not constitute an industrial strategy on their own

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The key drivers of this change are the technology, environmental and economic sectors. There’s going to be a net loss of 14 million jobs, or about 2% of current employment, according to the WEF.

This is the fourth edition of the Future of Jobs Report, which poses questions to 803 companies that collectively employ more than 11.3 million people working in 27 sectors and 45 economies across the globe. And it’s reflective of growing analysis of the impact that AI is having on the labour market. A Goldman Sachs report released earlier this year found that around 300 million jobs could be affected by AI. Microsoft’s 2023 Work Trend Index found that 82% of business leaders surveyed said employees will need new skills to be prepared for the growth of AI.

Globally, the green transition could create 30 million jobs in clean energy, efficiency and low-emissions technologies by 2030.

–WEF Future of Jobs Report

Amid the AI growth was another parallel trend in a positive direction for the green jobs: in addition to big-data analytics, the largest drivers of job growth are expected to be climate-change mitigation and environmental-management technologies, as well as encryption and cybersecurity, the WEF report says. “Globally, the green transition could create 30 million jobs in clean energy, efficiency and low-emissions technologies by 2030.” Sustainability specialists were among the fastest-growing job posts, according to LinkedIn research conducted for WEF

Other surveys have also pointed to the employment opportunities for those with expertise in sustainability. A report from Clean Energy Canada found that the clean energy sector was slated to grow by almost 50% from 2020 to 2030 – from 430,500 jobs to 639,200 jobs. In the United States, some 142,000 new clean energy jobs for electricians, mechanics and construction workers, among others, have been created since August 2022, according to advocacy group Climate Power. On the other hand, Ford announced earlier this year that it is slashing 11% of its European workforce, driven in part by its pivot to an electric car lineup.

The winds are indeed changing. According to the Future of Jobs Report, it’s largely clerical or data-entry positions that will be replaced by more digitization and technology in the workplace. The companies surveyed for the WEF report estimated that 34% of all business-related tasks are now performed by machines. That’s less than what companies had predicted in the 2020 edition of the report. Respondents to the 2023 survey forecast that by 2027, some 42% of business tasks will be automated.

While 49% of people say they’re worried AI will replace their jobs, 70% would delegate as much work as possible to AI to lessen their workloads.

–Microsoft’s 2023 Work Trend Index

“But while expectations of the displacement of physical and manual work by machines has decreased, reasoning, communicating and coordinating – all traits with a comparative advantage for humans – are expected to be more automatable in the future,” the report notes.

Amid the AI buzz, the Microsoft report highlights what it describes as an “AI–employee alliance.” It notes that “while 49% of people say they’re worried AI will replace their jobs, even more – 70% – would delegate as much work as possible to AI to lessen their workloads.”

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Climate action in Canada will create millions of new jobs and attract hundreds of billions of dollars in investment in the decades to come – much to the benefit of Canadian communities.  

From improving the energy efficiency of homes in Victoria, British Columbia, to producing hydrogen in Stephenville, Newfoundland, careers will be built across the country. But which clean economy opportunities will create green jobs in which regions? 

Analysis from the PLACE Centre, a new initiative of the Smart Prosperity Institute, shows where these jobs might occur by 2030 and what they might look like. The answer: every single community across the country has an opportunity to create jobs and attract investment as Canada’s economy reduces its emissions. To make this happen, regions need to keep advancing ambitious climate action, and develop greater place-based policies. 

These opportunities look different for each region. In Prince Edwad Island’s Stratford and Summerside regions, hundreds of new roles could be created in sustainable agriculture. In Quebec’s Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, manufacturing cleantech could be a source of stable careers for skilled tradespeople. Supporting the growth of Canada’s mass timber industry could be a major employer around Prince George and Quesnel in British Columbia. Installing renewable energy could employ Indigenous young adults in the Gwich’in and White River First Nation communities in the Yukon. 

So, what is needed to help communities realize these opportunities? Given the uncertainty facing the world right now, the best way to offer advice to regions thinking about the future is to consider how they may be affected by global trends. Levels of global cooperation may change as a result of economic disputes between trade partners. The ongoing war in Ukraine, a lingering COVID-19 pandemic and increasing natural disasters from a changing climate will all continue to disrupt supply chains moving forward. Our work forecasts, then compares, four versions of the future up to 2030. That way, we can show the impacts each trend may have and offer advice for regions to make the most of the opportunities arising from each potential future.

Our first piece of advice: stick with ambitious climate action. Even in a future where disruptions to supply chains from conflict worsen, pandemics and natural disasters skyrocket, and trade declines, climate action will still create tens of thousands of green jobs in regions like Kindersley-Kerrobert, Saskatchewan; around Cold Lake, Alberta; and near Edmundston and Miramachi, New Brunswick. In any future, clean growth is still growth, and it will support strong livelihoods and help Canadian companies sell into new markets.  

The second: we need to think differently about helping regions realize their potential. Forecasts show that some regions will be hit harder by economic disruptions than others. For others, Canada’s clean economy story is about managing all the growth they will likely see. 

Both challenges can be better managed through a place-based perspective. In areas that are expected to be harder hit, we need to make strategic investments in clean growth opportunities that can create green jobs. The announcement of a new green-hydrogen production facility in Stephenville, Newfoundland, fits this bill nicely. Governments can, and should, support projects like these through funding programs such as the federal Net Zero Accelerator initiative and the federal Canada Growth Fund. 

In areas where growth is expected, there are different challenges. To capitalize on these investment opportunities, tens of thousands of new workers will need to take new jobs. These workers will need to be trained and will need affordable places to live. Ambitious investments and focus on skills training, and making housing more affordable, are needed in these regions from federal and provincial governments. 

And our final piece of advice: Canada needs more ambitious policies to force our greenhouse gas emissions on a downward trajectory to ensure this growth does not derail our climate goals. The oil and gas sector is one area that requires more government attention. Recent analysis from the Canadian Climate Institute identified that a strict emissions cap and strong regulations on methane emissions are needed to keep emissions in the sector aligned with climate goals. Given the industry’s current windfall from higher oil prices, it is likely to attract investment and create jobs in the coming decade. Canadian policy-makers across all levels of government should not allow these economic benefits to put our climate goals out of reach.  

The analysis from the PLACE Centre makes one thing clear: Canada’s economic future will not rise or fall based on global trends or climate action. It will be driven by the success of its rich and diverse communities capturing the opportunities that make sense for them. Canada needs to invest in regional solutions and focus on helping communities turn their vision for a clean-growth future into a reality. If regions across the country get this right, we can change the world around us to better suit the interests of our communities, instead of waiting to see what happens. 

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That means product designers, supply managers, economists, scientists, architects and many others with the knowledge to both recognize unsustainable practices and find ways to improve sustainability for the overall health of their companies and the planet.

Employers are increasingly looking for those skills. We analyzed job ads from a global database and found a tenfold increase in the number of jobs with “sustainability” in the title over the last decade, reaching 177,000 in 2021.

What’s troubling is that there are not enough skilled workers to meet the rapid growth in green and sustainability jobs available.

While the number of “green jobs” grew globally at a rate of 8% per year over the last five years, the number of people listing green skills in their profiles only grew by 6% per year, according to a LinkedIn analysis of its nearly 800 million users.

As professors who train future workers in sustainability principles and techniques, we see several effective ways for people at all stages of their careers to gain those skills and increase those numbers.

Where sustainability jobs are growing fastest

In the U.S., jobs in the renewable energy and environment sectors, grew by 237% over the last five years. Globally, the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy is forecast to result in a net increase in jobs for the energy sector.

But green jobs go well beyond solar panel installation and wind turbine maintenance.

Sustainable fashion is one of the fastest-growing green jobs sectors, averaging a 90% growth rate annually between 2016 and 2020.

The rapid expansion of ESG investing – environment, social and governance – and portfolio management is opening up new jobs in sustainable finance. In 2021, the accounting firm PwC announced that it would invest US$12 billion and create 100,000 new jobs in ESG investing by 2026.

There is also a growing demand for urban sustainability officers who can help transition cities to be net-zero carbon and more resilient. After all, the world is adding 1 million people to cities every five days and building 20,000 American football fields’ worth of urban areas someplace on the planet every day.

In 2013, when the Rockefeller Foundation launched 100 Resilient Cities, a network to help cities become more sustainable, few cities had a resilience or sustainability officer. Today, more than 250 communities and 1,000 local government professionals are part of the Urban Sustainability Directors Network.

The number of companies with chief sustainability officers in executive positions also tripled from 9% to 28% between 2016 and 2021. But given the scale and business opportunities of sustainability, these skills are needed much more widely within organizations.

So, where can you find training?

Most sustainability and green jobs require creative problem-solving, synthesizing and technical skills. Some of those skills can be learned on the job, but boosting the number of qualified job applicants will require more effective and accessible training opportunities that target employers’ needs. Here are a some training sources to consider.

University programs: Sustainability is increasingly being incorporated into a wide range of university programs. Fifteen years ago, sustainability training was mostly ad hoc – a product designer or economist might have taken a class in sustainability approaches from the environmental science department. Today, U.S. universities have about 3,000 programs with a “sustainability” label, up from 13 in 2008.

A National Academies report recommends looking for a competency-based approach to sustainability learning that blends content with skills and links knowledge to action to solve problems and develop solutions.

Micro-credentials: For mid-career employees who don’t have the time to reinvest in full-fledged degrees, short courses and micro-credentials offered by universities, colleges or professional groups offer one way to develop sustainability skills.

A micro-credential might involve taking a series of courses or workshops focused on a specific skill, such as in wind energy technology or how to incorporate ESG criteria into business operations.

Short courses and micro credentials take up less time and are much less expensive than college degree programs. That may also help lower-income individuals train for sustainability jobs and diversify the field.

Specializations: A similar option is jobs-focused online certificate programs with a sustainability specialization.

For example, Google teamed up with universities to provide online courses for project managers, and Arizona State University is offering a sustainability specialization to accompany it. Project management is an area where the U.S. Department of Labor expects to see fast job growth, with 100,000 job openings in the next decade.

Corporate training: Some companies have developed their own internal sustainability training in climate science, sustainable finance, sustainability reporting and other skills.

Integrating sustainability across all functions of companies will require some level of sustainability training and understanding for most if not all employees. Companies like Starbucks, HSBC, Salesforce and Microsoft have created internal training programs to spread sustainability knowledge and practice throughout their companies, not just for employees who have sustainability in their titles.

Closing the gap

A recent survey by Microsoft and BCG of major companies found that only 43% of sustainability professionals in businesses had sustainability-related degrees, and 68% of sustainability leaders were hired internally.

It’s clear that on-the-job sustainability training and up-skilling will be necessary to fill the growing number of roles inside of companies.

To meet the sustainability skills gap, we believe more training will be required – at colleges and universities, by professional organizations and from employers. Achieving global sustainability and meeting climate change challenges will become more likely as legions of people commit their working hours to sustainability solutions.

Karen C. Seto is a professor of geography and urbanization Science at Yale University. Christopher Boone is a professor of sustainability at Arizona State University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Jane Savage has 37 years of experience in the Canadian energy industry in senior roles in fuel production, supply and trading. She is a co-founder of PACE.

Jobs matter to Canadians, – and over 500,000 of them are associated with the oil and gas industry in this country. Unfortunately, the production and combustion of Canadian crude oil results in higher carbon emissions than production and combustion from most other countries.

With 80% of Canada’s crude oil exported to the United States, which is on a path toward decarbonization, the threat to Canada’s oil industry jobs cannot be ignored. It’s not domestic federal government policy, nor domestic loss of demand for fuel products, nor the drive to net-zero domestically, nor the environmentalist fight against pipelines that are threatening Canadian oil jobs. Rather, it is the predictable decline in U.S. appetite for Canadian crude oil.

The sooner Canadian corporate and government leaders get out in front of this inevitable demand loss, the less devastating the energy-transition shock will be to Canada’s jobs and the economy.

The consulting firm McKinsey has documented a shift toward electric vehicles: global EV sales grew an average of 62% per year in the last four years and by 96% in 2021 alone. The report predicted that 42% of new vehicles sold in the U.S. will be EVs by 2027; the Biden administration is targeting 50% of new car sales to be EVs by 2030.

Automakers don’t want to get left in the dust as this transition accelerates and are rapidly moving away from the internal combustion engine. General Motors says it will stop selling gasoline and diesel vehicles by 2035. Ford is spending US$22 billion over the next four years to increase EV production. Stellantis (formerly Fiat Chrysler) is spending US$35 billion in the same period. Even Bentley will be all electric by 2030.

But electrification isn’t the greatest threat facing Canadian crude production and associated jobs. The larger competitive problem for Canada is that the United States – one of the world’s highest emitters of greenhouse gases – will need to find ways to decarbonize consumed fuels on its path to meet the Paris Climate Agreement’s goal of net-zero emissions by 2050. Since Canada’s crude oil has a higher carbon footprint than almost any other, the country’s crude will tumble in attractiveness for U.S. buyers. 

So far, the steps being taken in Canada to address this inevitable loss of thousands of jobs are not nearly bold enough. The recently announced tax credit for carbon capture, utilization and storage motivates producers to engage in carbon dioxide storage but doesn’t require it, and therefore can’t promise to result in the storage of enough carbon dioxide to make a difference to the U.S. The net-zero plans of the Canadian oil industry are laudable on many fronts but are narrowly limited to reducing the emissions from the extraction of Canada’s heavy crude oil, ignoring the carbon footprint of the refining and burning of these products. To be “carbon competitive” in the U.S. market, Canada will need to address all carbon dioxide emissions resulting from the use of its crude.

Electrification isn’t the greatest threat facing Canadian crude production and associated jobs.

We need to think about how to best decarbonize Canadian oil before the U.S. imposes low-carbon requirements at its borders. Regulating that requirement in the near-term is the only way to ensure Canada’s jobs are preserved during the energy transition. In the 1970s, as the adverse health impacts of lead in gasoline and the threat to Canadian oil jobs became clear, legislation was implemented to begin removing that lead. We must do the same now by finding a legislated solution to protect both Canadian jobs and the environment.

A workable policy solution for both industry and government to consider is an idea proposed by Oxford Net Zero and the ClimateWorks Foundation called the “carbon takeback obligation” (CTBO). This regulation would require all oil producers to permanently store an amount of carbon equivalent to what they produce, including emissions resulting from refining and burning their products. Phased in over time, carbon dioxide storage must reach 100% of the Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions associated with whatever crude oil is still being produced by 2050. This would result in a concrete plan for emission reductions and decarbonization, and it could create a predictable regulatory environment in which producers can operate. And importantly, any Canadian crude oil produced and exported would be carbon competitive for the U.S. market.

While some carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects have shown success, others have not. But the oil and gas industry has the technology, enormous innovative capacity, and money needed to support swift development in the field. Think of how quickly the industry mobilized to adopt fracking, a complicated and previously unheard-of technology that proved to be extremely good for business. If capturing and storing carbon dioxide becomes essential to the continuation of crude oil extraction, the industry will find scalable solutions. And complying with a CTBO would not be limited to CCS – it would be up to the industry to find the safest, most cost-effective methods of reducing emissions associated with their production. 

This regulation would motivate companies to spend their cash to develop and deploy the technologies – most of which exist already but are not fully utilized – to take responsibility for the emissions from their product. The cost of oil production in Canada will increase, driving the industry to produce more carbon-competitive products and invest in renewable energies. The ball will be in producers’ court as to how best to construct their future.

Oil industry leaders in Canada are at a crossroads. They can continue to lobby against changes to the business model that has been successful for the Canadian economy in the past, or they can reinvent themselves to get out in front of the inevitable job losses associated with U.S. decarbonization, driving toward a soft landing for Canadian companies and their employees. For the sake of Canadian jobs and a just energy transition, Canadian industry and government leaders must take decisive action now. 

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The upcoming decade is crucial for avoiding the worst impacts of the climate crisis. This federal election is a critical opportunity to demand that our political leaders listen and act at the scale and speed we know is necessary to address the climate emergency. The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) underscores, yet again, the urgency to act. 

Despite their reputation for being less likely to vote, young people are not apathetic – millennials are the country’s largest voting bloc. They represent more than 40% of voters in this election – and they have a lot riding on the election outcomes. 

The youth of today know that they will face the burden of tomorrow, and they are seeking to meaningfully participate in decision-making processes that will affect our future. The choices made by policy-makers, governments and leaders today will shape our societies for years to come. It’s vital that young people are given the opportunity and power to co-create the solutions for the future. 

This is the impetus behind the Davos Lab, an initiative of the Global Shapers Community that mobilized more than two million people in 180 nations to develop a youth-driven recovery plan to address the world’s socio-economic and environmental crises. A group of 14,000 young people around the world compiled the ideas behind the plan, released in August. They mobilized interested stakeholders to outline a vision of collective action that will help policy-makers integrate the voices of the next generation into recovery efforts. Such dialogues, led by young people, were also held across Canada, focusing on various topics, including conscious consumerism and accelerating a net-zero transition. 

One of the main issues of concern for youth in Canada and around the globe is the need for a green recovery and meaningful jobs. Job insecurity is on the rise, and young people are unclear about career prospects in this time of uncertainty. The RBC Future Launch study of more than 1,800 Canadians aged 14 to 29, released in March, found that in every province, youth are significantly less confident when it comes to their job prospects and how prepared they are for the future of work. Gen-Z women make up 2.5% of the Canadian labour force but account for 17% of the total decline in employment during the pandemic.

Young people risk being left behind as they are struggling with the youth unemployment crisis. That’s why we’re now calling on all federal political parties to commit to substantial investments in youth-led climate solutions, and skills development. This can also include the creation of a youth climate corps that provides good-paying green public jobs and puts Canadian youth to work. Young people can work toward restoring ecosystems, building community resilience, protecting biodiversity and contributing to care work. Ensuring equitable access to these opportunities will be critical to elevating youth voices in addressing climate change. 

In their 2021 election platform, the Liberals have broadly pledged to invest $8 billion to “accelerate green jobs,” in addition to investments in “youth employment and skills srategy.” The NDP promises to establish a civilian climate corps of young people to create jobs supporting conservation and “build an equitable clean-energy economy.” 

The Green Party platform also references the “creation of a youth climate corps” as part of its green jobs training program, while the Conservative platform does not include a direct mention of green jobs. (Shake Up the Establishment, a youth-led non-profit organization, provides a detailed summary of each party’s climate and environmental promises.) 

We need all federal political parties to embrace a comprehensive strategy that creates pathways for good green jobs for young people, especially those from equity-seeking groups. We also call on all parties to commit to shaping policy in collaboration with youth and invest in youth-led climate solutions, as well as holding companies accountable for environmental harms that jeopardize our future.

The actions being taken to date are not enough: Canada’s climate record is the worst among the G7, as emissions have continued to increase. A society-wide mobilization to address the climate crisis requires transforming our economy – it means reducing emissions rapidly, scaling regenerative business models that do not rely on the exploitation of people and the planet, mobilizing capital toward equitable climate solutions, and ending fossil fuel subsidies. As noted in Canada’s first state of the youth report, released in August 2021, “the climate crisis can only be solved with an overhaul of the system, not individual actions.”

If we are to avoid these pitfalls, we must ensure that we lay a foundation that addresses the systemic issues in our society by investing in young people, as they are the best placed to lead the transition to a more sustainable world. We are quickly becoming the last generation with the ability to slow down the rate of climate change. If today’s politicians want our vote, they must commit to saving our future. 

Puninda Thind is a sustainability professional, climate justice organizer and a Global Shaper passionate about building resilient, sustainable and just communities. Laura Corrales is an ESG consultant, social intrapreneur, Global Shaper and Action Canada Fellow passionate about youth leadership and  systemic change. Robyn Seetal is a CPA, CA, sustainability consultant, and impact investor passionate about adopting  eco-centric leadership as a tool for systemic change. Anoosha Lalani is a CPA and passionate environmentalist interested in the financial impact of ESG issues. 

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It has been clear for some time that our economy is on a collision course with the natural ecosystems it’s dependent upon. Thankfully, there’s a large and accelerating body of know-how when it comes to the changes that need to happen to get to zero carbon. For every one of the amazingly talented and wise panellists who have participated in these roundtables, there are hundreds more who are focused on this transition. With the pandemic-triggered prospect of renewed public investment, and with the creative leadership up-and-coming generations bring to the game, a door has opened. We have tried in this series to give a glimpse of what awaits us over the threshold.

By 2030, Canada could create more than five million quality job-years of employment by greening the power grid, electrifying transport and upgrading our homes and workplaces to be more comfortable and flood resilient. This wouldn’t just be good for jobs – it’s a pocketbook issue that would save Canadians a lot of money: $39 billion per year at the pumps and on heating and power bills by 2030 (in today’s dollars).

Note for chart below:Investment is Millions of $ total to 2030, and Person-years of employment is total to 2030.

We could also help to protect more than a million jobs that are at risk by:

● offering rebates for low-carbon cement, steel and mass timber,

● supporting farmers to adopt practices and technologies for restoring the soil while paying them fairly for the ecosystem services they provide,

● paying young people to plant an extra 800 million trees per year and supporting Indigenous communities to be forest guardians, and

● providing seed investment with an Natural Resources and EV Innovation Fund (which could be administered by existing institutions) to catalyze Canadian champions in fast-growing industries of the future where we have competitive advantages (lightweight bitumen-based carbon fibres, renewable jet fuels, green hydrogen, batteries and electric vehicles).

In the wake of the COVID crisis, in which more than three million Canadians have lost their jobs, this is all within reach if we choose to build back better by making these job-rich themes a priority in the federal government’s stimulus and recovery packages.

Making this happen would require a federal investment of $10 billion per year (0.4% of GDP) on average over the next decade. Forty percent of this total would be front-loaded in the first two years as part of the stimulus/recovery package, with strings attached to ensure essential complementary policies in other jurisdictions, including net-zero building codes for new and existing buildings by 2022, fair power-grid access for storage and renewables, and an electric vehicle mandate for Canada. To keep the momentum going, additional non-grant federal financial support would be offered, including in the form of low-cost loans and guarantees.

Underpinning all of this would be investment in skills training so that Canadians learn while they are working in these new jobs. We have done this before. When teachers were urgently needed for the new public education system early in the 20th century, they were given intensive training for one year followed by years of in-service training during their early careers. These teachers were a vital part of Canada’s nation building as we recovered from the ravages of war and a pandemic.

Over a decade, the federal investment in the programs we have proposed would total $106 billion, crowding in an additional $681 billion in private and other sector investment, creating 6.7 million years of employment – more than twice the jobs that have been lost due to COVID-19. These investments would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by an estimated 237 million tonnes from 2018 levels. That would meet our Paris Climate Agreement commitments and put us on a path to a carbon-free economy within a generation.

These investments are of the same order of magnitude as those being made in Canada today. Case in point: the deep retrofits to homes required to make them more comfortable, cheaper to heat and cool, and better prepared to withstand floods and extreme weather works out to about $20 billion per year. That’s just one-third the $60 billion Canadians spend on home renovations each year. Similarly, the investments to decarbonize Canada’s transmission grid are on par with  business-as-usual investments happening today.

Support for a green recovery is mounting. 

Some of the world’s leading economists recently completed an analysis of possible COVID-19 economic recovery packages. They concluded that green projects create more jobs, deliver higher short-term economic returns per dollar spent and lead to increased long-term cost savings, compared to traditional fiscal stimulus.

This finding is also supported by McKinsey’s research, which found a low-carbon recovery could not only initiate the significant emissions reductions needed to halt climate change but also create more jobs and economic growth than a high-carbon recovery would. Our proposals are very much in line with this research.

Canadians want to do this.

In an Ipsos global poll, 61% of Canadians said they agree or tend to agree that “in the economic recovery after COVID-19, it’s important that government actions prioritize climate change.” And that was without being given information about the jobs-rich nature of a green recovery.

Other countries are reaching the same conclusions we have:

● On May 27, the European Commission proposed a €750 billion ($1.137 trillion) recovery fund to steer the continent toward carbon neutrality by 2050, with a quarter of the plan earmarked for climate action.

● On May 26, France announced an €8 billion ($12 billion) plan to accelerate the transition to electric cars, which will include increasing the amount buyers can receive as a state incentive toward the purchase of an electric car.

● German Chancellor Angela Merkel has indicated that her government aims to implement a stimulus package that “helps the economy’s move toward climate neutrality,” saying “it will be all the more important that if we set up economic stimulus programs, we must always keep a close eye on climate protection.”

● Denmark has allocated 30 billion kroner ($6 billion) for green building renovations, estimated to help upgrade 72,000 homes.

How to pay for it?

The federal investment component of this could be financed via green bonds, but we don’t need to take on additional debt to do this. We can find the money for the public investments needed to seize this opportunity by making minor and long-overdue changes to Canada’s tax code.

According to Finance Canada, there are more than 170 corporate tax giveaways that add up to more than $156 billion per year. While some have public benefit (such as small business supports, charitable deductions for corporations, R&D tax credits and regional assistance funds), there are at least five naked examples of corporate welfare that sap more than $40 billion dollars from the public purse every single year with little to show for it – and that’s not even counting the billions of dollars siphoned off each year via elaborate corporate tax-avoidance schemes.

In addition, the Canada Revenue Agency estimates that tax avoidance by roughly 15,000 large corporations is costing Canada 6.7 to $7.9 billion per year, but that’s a low-ball estimate. A six-month investigative analysis by the Toronto Star, Corporate Knights and Paul Rhodes, an International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) expert, found that the 100 largest companies in Canada avoided $62.9 billion in taxes over a six-year period, for an average of $10.5 billion per year.

That’s the same amount of public investment that’s needed to catalyze the Building Back Better program to crowd in $730 billion in private investment, create 6.7 million years of employment and deliver $39 billion annually in savings to Canadians, all the while putting us well on the path to net-zero emissions by 2050.

Why don’t we plug those holes and invest a fraction of the money on a temporary basis to build back better and catalyze the industries of the future that preserve rather than plunder our planet, while creating 6.3 million quality jobs?

If timing and political constraints don’t allow for the tax reform measures, with its AAA sovereign bond rating Canada could issue a green bond with proceeds ring-fenced for green recovery purposes  and regular reporting on the use of proceeds. It would send a signal to global investors that Canada is serious about reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 and halving its emissions by 2030.

The institutions that will enable the investments in the Building Back Better program are ready and capable of doing this today. After the Second World War, the CMHC (then known as the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation), in partnership with Canadian chartered banks, led the way in helping to house Canadians. Now the CMHC can lead in transforming Canadian homes and workplaces into more valuable, functional and comfortable buildings that have been deeply retrofitted.

Similarly, the Canada Infrastructure Bank is ready to invest in transmission infrastructure that will underpin a $100 billion investment in Canada’s sun and wind belt in Alberta and Saskatchewan that would put Canada at the forefront of 21st-century grid technology.

Canada also has strong institutions for energy innovation and economic diversification. Over the past century, Natural Resources Canada has successfully funded energy research, development and demonstration, as has Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada in economic diversification. And Export Development Canada has the mechanisms in place to assure multi-year commitments, including through loan programs to corporations of all sizes (and a new program of guaranteed loans to support oil and gas companies that could be extended to the green industries of the future). The Invest in Canada program, set up to support economic prosperity and stimulate innovation in Canada, can also play a role in attracting investment in the fast-growing industries of the future that play to Canada’s natural advantages.

And there are many capable provincial agencies with strong technical capacity that can act as vehicles to carry out the R&D and pilots we have proposed, including Alberta Innovates, Emissions Reduction Alberta and the Saskatchewan Research Council, to name a few.

We should point out, though, that not everyone thinks public investment and involvement to spark a green recovery is a good idea.

Chris Ragan, chair of the Ecofiscal Commission, recently warned that “engineering a ‘green recovery’ is a terrible idea.” He suggested that it’s better to just raise the carbon price two- or threefold and let the magic of the invisible hand do its work.

While a carbon tax is part of the policy toolkit, it won’t be sufficient to propel a green recovery at the speed needed. Raising the carbon tax from a dime per litre of gas to 25 cents a litre certainly doesn’t hurt the economics for getting an electric car (EV), but it’s unlikely to be a material inducement, given that EVs already save the average driver more than $1,000 per year on the differential between what it costs to fill up at the pump versus by the plug. A hiked carbon tax would make this a little sweeter, but just by a few hundred dollars.

Raising the carbon tax won’t address the real barriers to EV adoption, which include a lack of charging infrastructure, the need for a national Zero Emissions Vehicle mandate that requires automakers to supply more EVs  (a six-month wait is standard for many EV models) and quirks in the auto-leasing market, which discriminate against new EV models by making maximum depreciation assumptions – even though EVs have proven to hold their value just as well as their internal combustion counterparts.

We know that public investment kick-starts markets. In the case of deep retrofits and to get homes off fossil fuel heating, public investment would catalyze a new deep-retrofit renovation industry. Today, it costs more than $40,000 to retrofit a home and make it flood resilient. Research shows that when retrofits are delivered at scale, where work is coordinated over multiple homes in a neighbourhood, these costs can be reduced by half. Once that happens, retrofits become affordable for homeowners. Markets can then take over and public funds are no longer needed.

Information is key to kick-starting all this. That’s why we suggest that first grants and then retrofit mortgage insurance for deep retrofits be delivered by the CMHC in conjunction with chartered banks – so that information promoting retrofits can be integrated into national conversations about the value of Canadian homes. As awareness grows around Canada’s progress toward achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, home buyers will place more value on net-zero homes. Local utilities can be pressed into service to deliver these programs too.

The lion’s share of work to fire up the low-carbon, high-productivity economy comes down to smart regulation (ZEV mandates, building codes and procurement pull policies), along with industrial policy (of the sort that unlocked billions of dollars in the oil sands).

The Business Council of Canada recently issued a statement saying that “for Canada’s recovery plan to succeed, policy makers will need a growth mindset, a singular focus on economic fundamentals and evidence-based approaches to stimulating economic activity.”

We would tend to agree. But let us not lose sight of the most fundamental of the “economic fundamentals”: our economy exists entirely within and is completely dependent on the natural ecosystems in which it is embedded. As go the ecosystems, so goes the economy.

Thanks to innovations that have made low-carbon options the better buy in most cases, the market jury has already issued its verdict: those who have the low-carbon solutions will have the high-performance economies.

The question is this: do we want to be buyers or suppliers for the green economy goods and services that will drive the wealth of nations this century?

If we want to be suppliers, now is the time to pony up.

Postscript: While this series has been largely focused on the green economy elements of a green recovery, we would like to acknowledge that it is unlikely there will be a green recovery unless there is a big-tent coalition that is bold and creative enough to dislodge the forces of inertia. The best chance we have for the green economy to prevail is by marrying the green economy movement with social justice movements, which on a practical level means Building Back Better with vastly enhanced supports for eldercare, childcare and living wages, and as we’ve noted repeatedly throughout the series, by supporting thriving Indigenous communities.

Ralph Torrie is senior associate with Sustainability Solutions Group and partner at Torrie Smith Associates.

Céline Bak is the founder and president of Analytica Advisors.

Toby Heaps is the CEO and co-founder of Corporate Knights. 

Notice to reader: Please be aware some of the figures and other details in this white paper have been updated in the Final Report to reflect feedback.

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