The future is green

Report after report shows many more jobs will be created, than lost, in closing down polluting industries, and creating clean sustainable ones in their place. Notably 2008 was the year that investment in renewables outstripped that in fossil fuels. Coal jobs are now a retreating niche, whereas green jobs are a growing mainstream.

The challenge is in making sure that those with current brown jobs have an opportunity to “move over” to work in a new green job.

It is true that some jobs may not easily be transferred. Not withstanding the point that a fair number of mine employees are approaching retirement age in the next decade, the fact remains that some of these employees may not wish to change jobs, or to be retrained. Some jobs, a few jobs, will be lost.

A transition to a safe, clean economy and society is going to result in some hardship that will affect some more than others. However challenging this inevitability may be, it doesn’t mean we should close our eyes and hope it will go away.

Yet at the moment, that is precisely what is happening. There is no plan to manage the downsizing that will occur in carbon intensive industries. Greenpeace and others call such a well-managed plan a Just Transition. For some individuals, it may include a wage safety net to ensure those most affected, could transition to a green job on the same pay.

The alternative to this plan is to just continue with business as usual. The result will be lay-offs, and the commensurate community impacts - and no alternative industries to replace incomes lost, as the rest of the world moves to a clean economy without us.

Overseas organisations are actively working to make their own domestic economies greener. The United Mine Workers of America are among several prominent US unions, who support the Apollo programs mission to "put millions of Americans to work in a new generation of high-quality, green-collar jobs".

The real question for mine sector employees in Australia is, will the path to a clean, green sustainable economy here hit a speed bump, or will it result in a head on crash?