One million green jobs now!
All too often you hear someone say: "What about all the workers that will lose their jobs if there were no short-haul flights" or "aviation expansion means more jobs". A new report from the Campaign against Climate Change, 'One Million Jobs Now', provides the answer. It shows how over 1,000,000 jobs could be created in 'climate jobs'.
These jobs would directly help to reduced the amount of greenhouse gases we're putting into the air - unlike the 'green jobs' the Goverment keeps supporting. The report suggests that new jobs could be created in all areas - including those in sustainable energies, homes and buildings and transport.
Providing this many new jobs is vital to tackling climate change and providing a transition for workers employed in polluting industries. It would also assist the two and a half million people currently unemployed in the UK. The report demonstrates how over half those people could be re-employed in new 'climate jobs'.
The report was partly inspired by the Vestas struggle, where a group of un-unionised workers on the Isle of Wight were given their marching orders when a factory manufacturing wind turbines was shut down. Work in sectors like the aviation industry is notoriously precarious, with boom and bust cycles creating little job security. The report argues for Government investment in genuinely sustainable employment, for work which will continue to be useful; regardless of the vagaries of the market.
This document is hugely important to climate change activists. It helps to highlight the compatibility of workers and climate activist's struggles and so helps to cement a crucial relationship in the fight against capitalism and climate change.
