COP29: $300 Billion Will Not Get Us Very Far If We Cannot Put the Right Skills in the Right Places for the Green Transition

Following last minute meetings with key negotiating countries, COP29 wrapped up 35 hours overtime, with an agreed climate finance target of US$300 billion annually by 2035. This is of course a welcome development: ramping up funding is crucial to achieve the goals that could keep global warming at bay (though some commentators and CGD colleagues have noted that the $300 billion figure might not be enough).

Global commitments and pledges (and funding that comes along) designed to ramp up decarbonisation have a central limitation: without a step change in the global coordination for more green skills training and a workforce that can meet the demand wherever it is, countries will struggle to meet their ambitious climate goals.

Take one such commitment, the COP29 Global Energy Storage and Grids Pledge which is a collective goal, contributing an additional 1,500 GW of energy storage in the power sector globally, and increasing grid capacity by adding or refurbishing 25 million kilometres of grids by 2030. The skilled workers needed to refurbish or build millions of kilometres of grids are construction workers, electrical engineers, and electricians. There are already existing workforce and skills shortages across all three of these professions in the United States, Australia, and the UK.

Looking at the forecasts of electrician shortages, demand is high across OECD states: in the UK, there is a forecasted shortage of over 100,000 electricians by 2032, in the US the expected shortage is 1,000,000 by 2030, and in Australia 42,000 additional electricians will be needed by 2030.  According to the International Energy Association, the private sector have cited a lack of skilled labour as a ‘major barrier to ramping up operations’. Labour migration can be a useful tool to plug acute skills shortages, and can be considered as part of a wider policy toolkit on skills and shortages within the green transition.

With often non-costly trainings, pairing training investment and migration means that workers in many developing countries can meet the rising demand for these critical occupations.  There have been interesting pilot approaches for green skilled migration partnerships which have resulted in a triple win–investment for countries of origin, training for the migrant worker, and new skilled workers for the country of destination–all while avoiding brain drain (policy details outlined in this CGD briefing). For example, the THAMM Plus project (Towards a Holistic Approach to Labour Migration Governance and Labour Mobility in Italy and North Africa) is funded by the European Union and implemented by the International Organization for Migration running from 2024–2026 and building on a previous 2019 project (THAMM). The project aims to provide skills and language training to employ 2,000 Tunisians in the Italian construction and public works sector, to meet Italy’s growing labour shortages. The challenge, of course, is how to scale these programs up to be able to meet labour needs across countries and sectors.

All in all, here is our message: Financial and policy commitments need to be accompanied by a frank assessment of the needed green jobs and skills to ensure workforce shortages are not a barrier to climate progress. Skills shortages were discussed in the sidelines of COP29, but missing from the main agenda. But perhaps one of the most politically sensitive topics of the times we are living in–migration–will be part of the solution of the most important problem facing humanity, climate change.

The net zero target to decline emissions 43 percent by 2030 is fast approaching, and in order to deliver action on the commitments of COP29, it is important that labour and skills needs are included in countries’ action plans. But the reality is that as we enter the next stage of implementation, policy makers are missing the granular country and sector level data on what labour and skills will be needed, what upskilling is needed, and what the remaining shortages are. Without a serious effort and better data to understand what the key shortage professions are to achieve decarbonisation, countries will fail to invest in domestic skills training and upskilling, apprenticeships, and–the obvious solution–create pathways of labour migration to plug acute shortages where necessary.