Every Worker Counts: Why Climate Targets Can’t Be Met Without Skilled Workers

Skilled workers are needed to complete tasks, like installing solar panels or heat pumps, that must be completed to cut carbon emissions. But there aren’t enough of these workers. Analyses from numerous countries (e.g. the UK and Germany) suggest shortages of tens or hundreds of thousands of trained workers.

In this context, each missing “green-skilled” worker can have significant carbon implications. New CGD modelling suggests that one additional worker in roles critical to residential solar or heat pump deployment can enable thousands of tonnes of CO2 abatement—the equivalent of planting thousands of trees. And new research by the NewClimate Institute suggests that skills shortages in the power sector could shift the world from a ~1.7°C pathway towards a substantially higher-warming trajectory (closer to ~2.4°C) if labour constraints persist. Meanwhile, there is a growing consensus of the importance of labour market interventions to address this looming challenge.

This discussion will highlight what these findings mean for the delivery of emissions reductions goals:

• Why workforce constraints are a first-order decarbonisation challenge;
• The education policy steps that must be taken to reduce decarbonisation workforce gaps; and
• How to combine domestic training, intra-labour market transitions, and targeted migration to relieve bottlenecks.