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Carbon trading in Australia will create millions of new green-collar jobs by expanding traditional industries and creating new ones, says the CSIRO’s senior science leader.
In an opinion piece on ABC News Online today, Dr Heinz Schandl argues that CSIRO research has found the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) scheme will have little negative effect on the Australian economy.
“An emission trading system has only modest impacts on economic growth and employment. These relatively negligible economic impacts contrast with dramatic improvements in energy use, greenhouse emissions and materials use,” he said.
Dr Schandl, who is addressing the Climate Change @ Work Conference in Sydney today, says millions of jobs will be created by new industries and innovative thinking in traditional ones, such as agriculture, manufacturing, construction and transportation.
“In some cases, new fields of employment may emerge, eg in the manufacturing of pollution-control technologies,” he said.
“Secondly, some employment will be substituted, e.g. when shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy solutions or from land-filling to recycling.
“Third, certain jobs may be eliminated without replacement, but most importantly, many existing jobs will simply be transformed and redefined.”
Spokesman for the Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union (CFMEU), Peter Colley, says “the CSIRO has hit the nail on the head” in saying that conventional industries are going to have a green aspect to them.
“Someone who’s building a pipeline carrying oil and gas is supposedly doing a non-green job, but building a pipeline to carry C02 for storage suddenly becomes a green job,” he said.
“It’s certainly the case that the CPRS and any other measure to reduce emissions are going to cause new investment in new jobs and we fully support that. ”
The Australian Industry Group and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry were not available for comment.
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