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green economy
World On Verge of 'New Industrial Age' as Clean Energy Jobs Boom: IEA
"We're talking about new clean energy technology markets worth hundreds of billions of dollars as well as millions of new jobs," said the head of the International Energy Agency—if countries implement their climate pledges.
Jan 12, 2023
Clean energy manufacturing jobs will more than double by the end of the decade if countries worldwide live up to their climate and energy pledges, according to a report published Thursday by the International Energy Agency.
"The energy world is at the dawn of a new industrial age—the age of clean energy technology manufacturing—that is creating major new markets and millions of jobs but also raising new risks, prompting countries across the globe to devise industrial strategies to secure their place in the new global energy economy," the IEA report—entitledEnergy Technology Perspectives 2023—asserts.
The publication is a "comprehensive analysis of global manufacturing of clean energy technologies today—such as solar panels, wind turbines, EV batteries, electrolyzers for hydrogen, and heat pumps—and their supply chains around the world, as well as mapping out how they are likely to evolve as the clean energy transition advances in the years ahead."
\u201cThe @IEA's Energy Technology Perspectives 2023 is out!\n\nIt shows we're entering a new industrial age \u2013 the age of clean energy technology manufacturing\n\nThis will create new markets worth hundreds of billions of dollars & millions of jobs this decade \u2b07\ufe0f https://t.co/kb2bxOBkW5\u201d— Fatih Birol (@Fatih Birol) 1673499727
According to the paper:
The global market for key mass-manufactured clean energy technologies will be worth around $650 billion a year by 2030—more than three times today's level—if countries worldwide fully implement their announced energy and climate pledges. The related clean energy manufacturing jobs would more than double from six million today to nearly 14 million by 2030—and further rapid industrial and employment growth is expected in the following decades as transitions progress.
The report cautions that "at the same time, the current supply chains of clean energy technologies present risks in the form of high geographic concentrations of resource mining and processing as well as technology manufacturing."
For example, the three largest producers of technologies like solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicle batteries, electrolyzers, and heat pumps "account for at least 70% of manufacturing capacity for each technology—with China dominant in all of them."
\u201cThe new global energy economy brings new opportunities, but also new risks\n\nMost steps of today\u2019s clean energy supply chains are geographically concentrated, especially for technology manufacturing\n\nThis underscores the need for diversification \ud83d\udc49 https://t.co/Z09U22Por7\u201d— International Energy Agency (@International Energy Agency) 1673559901
"Meanwhile, a great deal of the mining for critical minerals is concentrated in a small number of countries," the analysis states. "The Democratic Republic of Congo produces over 70% of the world's cobalt, and just three countries—Australia, Chile, and China—account for more than 90% of global lithium production."
IEA executive director Fatih Birol said in a statement that the new global energy economy "has become a central pillar of economic strategy and every country needs to identify how it can benefit from the opportunities and navigate the challenges."
"We're talking about new clean energy technology markets worth hundreds of billions of dollars as well as millions of new jobs," Birol continued. "The encouraging news is the global project pipeline for clean energy technology manufacturing is large and growing. If everything announced as of today gets built, the investment flowing into manufacturing clean energy technologies would provide two-thirds of what is needed in a pathway to net-zero emissions."
"The current momentum is moving us closer to meeting our international energy and climate goals—and there is almost certainly more to come," he added.
"The encouraging news is the global project pipeline for clean energy technology manufacturing is large and growing."
Birol also stressed that "the world would benefit from more diversified clean technology supply chains."
"As we have seen with Europe's reliance on Russian gas, when you depend too much on one company, one country, or one trade route—you risk paying a heavy price if there is disruption," he noted, referring to Russia's ongoing war against Ukraine.
An analysis of U.S. federal data published earlier this month by the sustainable energy development nonprofit SUN DAY Campaign concluded that wind and solar alone could generate more electricity in the United States than nuclear and coal in 2023.
A separate report released this week by the Rhodium Group, a New York-based nonpartisan research firm, found that while U.S. carbon emissions rose for the second straight year in 2022, renewable energy surpassed coal as a power source in the United States for the first time in more than 60 years.
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The Water, Energy and Food Nexus
Dec 05, 2011
As I flew back from Bonn last week, on my way back from the Bonn 2011 Nexus Conference (16-18 November), one thing was clear to me. Corporate environmentalism is entrenching itself firmly in the corridors of global governance, and challenging its advance will require new strategies. The "in-your-face" approach of yesterday is being replaced with a softer, albeit more dangerous "corporate responsibility" garb. This softer path also seeks to ensure that civil society stakeholders are seen as party to the decisions.
The Bonn Nexus conference is symptomatic of the way that corporate environmentalism is developing. "The water, energy and food security nexus, Solutions for the Green Economy,"as it is called, is an initiative of the federal government of Germany to develop specific contributions to the Rio+20 Conference. It is an important event because this is the first of several nexus conferences being planned to gain political support for advancing the green economy at Rio+20. The next follow-up conference is being organized by World Economic Forum and will be held in January 2012.
In its recognition of a "nexus," these conferences could be seen as a step forward. Two years ago, when we published a report on the need for integrated solutions for the water, climate and food crises, the idea of connections between these three sectors was simply not on any official agenda.
But the conference understood the "nexus" through a distinctive lens--that of the "green economy." This term has been coming to a new prominence over the last year or two. And what it actually means was brought out well in the Bonn proceedings. The majority of experts at the conference were from international institutions (including globally operating NGOs), and for-profit companies, with a limited number of experts and representatives from a broader group of smaller NGOs and the global South. Moreover most sessions seemed to be focused on the technocratic approach of increasing resource use efficiency. In fact, some of these concerns were brought up by us in a letter to the organizers of the Bonn 2011 Nexus Conference.
Resource use efficiency improvement is always a desirable objective, but a lot depends on how it is concretized. At Bonn, while increasing crop per drop was defined as part of green growth in agriculture, the "hows" were left undefined, thus leaving the field open for introduction of GMO crops, nanotechnology and synthetic biology. [This became clear, when in response to my intervention, in the strategy panel on creating more with less, the presenter answered in the affirmative].
The focus on resource use efficiency also usually goes along with silence on other issues. At Bonn, there was hardly any discussion about the polluting and resource intensive role of global capital in the traditional economy, about holding it accountable for cleaning up its act or about its contribution to the disenfranchisement of the poor. The private sector was seen as the source for funding, in the absence of public finance, but the question of how the private sector was to be regulated was not addressed in official proceedings.
In this, Bonn is not unusual. As several bloggers attending the ongoing climate conference in Durban point out at Occupy COP17, industrialized countries continue to urge those who question market mechanisms to "trust the markets." For example, a letter released yesterday in Durban, endorsed by over 163 organizations including IATP, drew attention to an attempt by the U.S., the UK and Japan to turn the Green Climate Fund--created to support people in developing countries, people who are the most affected by the climate crisis but are the least responsible for it--into a "Greedy Corporate Fund." According to the Friends of the Earth International, "developed countries are trying to allow multinational corporations and financiers" to directly access Green Climate Fund financing, meant to help adaptation in the developing countries.
Also, while the conference stressed over and again the need for increasing the production of food and energy, and for ensuring water and energy security for the poor, there was little acknowledgement of the fact that today if too many women, men and children go to bed hungry, it is not due to problems with food production, but rather with food distribution.
What would be an alternative way of proceeding with the nexus approach or, if we want to retain the phrase, "green economy?" Perhaps we should begin, first, with this humble recognition: the nexus approach is best understood (and practiced) possibly by the over 1 billion people who do not have access to food and clean water, or the 2.5 billion who do not have access to sanitation or energy to meet their basic needs. The poorest billion actually uses resources most efficiently. But this is a different kind of efficiency from that involved in the green economy. Here, efficiency springs from a recognition of the human and ecosystem interdependence and indeed inseparability of what we for functional purposes separate out as three domains.
Second, building on this, we should adhere to the full implications of what the Bonn conference called for, without giving that call any substance or teeth: "putting people and their basic human rights at the center of the nexus--especially women, who make important choices and decisions regarding water, energy, and food for household consumption," is necessary to make the nexus approach work. To put people and their basic rights at the center of the nexus would mean listening to them, starting out from their perspective, rather than assuming that "we" have the solutions which we need to give to them.
Third, those of us in societies and states that consume far beyond our share of the earth's resources surely need to improve our resource use efficiency, but that must begin with the questioning of our consumption patterns themselves, rather than seeking more efficient ways to continue with the same consumption patterns.
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