Meeting well-below 2°C target would increase energy sector jobs globally

Pai, Sandeep; Emmerling, Johannes; Drouet, Laurent; Zerriffi, Hisham; Jewell, Jessica

doi:10.1016/j.oneear.2021.06.005

Cited by 56 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…With further advancement of the coal reduction policy, shutdown of CFPPs may lead to a wave of unemployment in the power sector without proper placement of laid-off workers (Heinrichs et al 2017, Burke et al 2019. By contrast, the capacity of renewable energy, including wind power and solar power, has grown rapidly in recent years and created plenty of new jobs (Bohlmann et al 2019) that may provide opportunities to compensate for the job losses resulting from closure of CFPPs (Pai et al 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

China’s power transformation may drastically change employment patterns in the power sector and its upstream supply chains

Zhou

Chen

Wei

et al. 2022

Environ. Res. Lett.

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China’s power sector as the major CO2 emitter has experienced significant restructuring, which has profound impacts on employment in both power and its upstream sectors. Combining the input-output and structural path analysis, we quantified the direct and indirect impacts of power transformation on employment in China during 2012-2017. The direct employment in power generation sector witnessed a net growth of 0.12 million, while over ten times of jobs (1.40 million) have been lost in the upstream sectors, mainly attributed to coal mining and washing, finance, oil and gas extraction and transportation. Among the top 10 critical paths, the share of employment driven by solar and wind power increased to 12.31% in 2017, more than 9 times of that in 2012. Furthermore, three scenarios have been set up to evaluate the employment pattern in 2030 and 2050. Under 1.5℃ scenario, projection shows that power sector can drive over 5 million jobs in 2050, and more than 80% of which are related to renewable energy. Policy suggestions for just transition, such as resettlement of laid-off workers and job transfer in upstream industries have been comprehensively discussed.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

China’s power transformation may drastically change employment patterns in the power sector and its upstream supply chains

Zhou

Chen

Wei

et al. 2022

Environ. Res. Lett.

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“…About 12.6 million people are employed in the energy sector worldwide, 4.6 million in the renewable energy industry and 0.8 million in the nuclear sector. Decarbonisation will actually enable [ 41 ] that of total energy jobs in 2050, 84% would be in the renewables sector, 11% in fossil fuels, and 5% in nuclear. Therefore, by 2050, the UK Government’s goal is 80% decarbonisation, while at the same time improving productivity, as well as creating new employment opportunities [ 42 ].…”

Section: Discussion Recommendations and Future Sustainability Concernsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Decarbonisation of eastern European economies: monitoring, economic, social and security concerns

et al. 2022

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Background Decarbonisation of the European economy is one of the main strategic goals of energy transition in the European Union (EU), which aims to become a leader in this process by 2050 and to include other European countries making thus the European continent the first carbon neutral region in the world. Although decarbonisation is an important goal of the EU, the models for monitoring the progress of this process have not yet been clearly defined, and views on the social, economic, and security implications in terms of prioritising decarbonisation are conflicting. The main objective of this paper is to determine the methodological correctness of the existing method of decarbonisation monitoring, to develop a new monitoring model indicating the differences in the EU and European countries that are non-EU and to point out the underlying social, economic and security implications that must certainly find their place in the decision-making process in this field. Results The main results showed that there is no clearly defined model for monitoring the success of decarbonisation, while the indicators that are commonly used for this purpose make a model that, as the analysis shows—is methodologically incorrect. In the case of EU countries, the following indicators proved to be the most reliable: consumption-based CO2 and share in global CO2. For non-EU countries, the best monitoring indicators are CO2 per unit of GDP, consumption-based CO2, and renewable energy consumption. These indicators can explain 99% of the variance in decarbonisation success. Conclusions The basic conclusion of the paper is that even before the implementation, the decarbonisation monitoring model should be defined and methodologically tested, and the use of a single model for all EU countries or for all countries is not recommended. It is proposed to simplify the monitoring model, with an emphasis on monitoring of consumption-based CO2, which proved to be the most efficient in all sampled countries. The current method of monitoring is based exclusively on environmentally related indicators while ignoring the fact that decarbonisation is associated with almost all aspects of development. The additional social, economic and security aspects need to be developed and included in the further monitoring process.

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“…These include mitigating the short-and mediumterm effects on coal industry employment and structural deindustrialisation, as well as the fiscal impact of declining coal revenue and, in some cases, higher costs for electricity consumers [15]. Strategies for managing these and other political economy frictions of phasing out coal in China have been examined qualitatively [16] and integrated assessment models (IAMs) have been used to project changes in energy sector employment across different countries, including China [17]. However, the reconstruction and quantification of employment and fiscal impacts of coal phase-out in China, in a granular, bottom-up manner and using publicly available data, has not yet been attempted.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Estimating the Employment and Fiscal Consequences of Thermal Coal Phase-Out in China

Clark

Zhang

2022

Energies

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China hosts over half of global coal-fired power generation capacity and has the world’s largest coal reserves. Its 2060 carbon neutrality goal will require coal-fired electricity generation to shrink dramatically, with or without carbon capture and storage technology. Two macroeconomic areas in which the socioeconomic impact of this decline is felt are losses in jobs and tax revenues supported by thermal coal mining, transport and power generation. At the national level, under a ‘baseline’ (B) scenario consistent with China’s carbon neutrality goal, labour productivity growth in coal mining implies that significant job losses will occur nationally in the medium term, even if all coal plants continue operating as planned. Jobs supported by the coal power industry would decline from an estimated 2.7 million in 2021, to 1.44 million in 2035 and 94,000 in 2050, with jobs losses from mining alone expected to exceed 1.1 million by 2035. Tax revenues from thermal coal would total approximately CNY 300 billion annually from 2021–2030, peaking in 2023 at CNY 340 billion. This is significantly less than estimated subsidies of at least CNY 480 billion, suggesting coal is likely a net fiscal drain on China’s public finances, even without accounting for the costs of local pollution and the social cost of carbon. As coal plant retirements accelerate, from 2034 onwards, fiscal revenues begin to fall more rapidly, with rates of decline rising from 1% in the 2020s to over 10% a year by the 2040s. More aggressive climate policy and technology scenarios bring job and tax losses forward in time, while a No Transition policy, in which all currently planned coal plants are built, delays but does not ultimately prevent these losses. At the provincial level, China’s major coal-producing provinces will likely face challenges in managing the localised effects of expected job losses and finding productive alternative uses for this labour. Governments of coal-producing provinces like Inner Mongolia, with an industry highly dependent on exports to other provinces, are more exposed than others to declining tax revenues from coal, and more insulated from job losses, given their high current degree of labour efficiency. Although their provincial revenues are likely to remain stable until the early 2030s under the B scenario, the possibility of increasing policy stringency underlines the need for revenue and skill base diversification. At the firm level, China’s ‘Big Five’ state-owned power companies were responsible for over 40% of both jobs and tax revenues in 2021. The number of jobs supported by the activities of each of the largest ten firms, with one exception, will decline by 71–84% by the early 2040s, with the tax contribution of each declining by 43–69% in the same period.

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Meeting well-below 2°C target would increase energy sector jobs globally

Cited by 56 publications

References 35 publications

China’s power transformation may drastically change employment patterns in the power sector and its upstream supply chains

China’s power transformation may drastically change employment patterns in the power sector and its upstream supply chains

Decarbonisation of eastern European economies: monitoring, economic, social and security concerns

Estimating the Employment and Fiscal Consequences of Thermal Coal Phase-Out in China

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