CLIMATE change provides a major threat to more than a billion workers,
as well as opportunities to create employment for millions around the
world if addressed correctly, according to a new report.
The World Employment and Social Outlook 2018 released
in May by the International Labour Organization (ILO) claimed that at
least 1.2 billion people rely on a healthy and sustainable environment
in their work – particularly those in agriculture, fisheries and
forestry.
Climate change poses grave risks to future employment. The ILO reported
that 23 million working life years have been lost to natural disasters
since 2000, and climate change will see disasters occur more frequently
and with greater severity.
Around 2 percent of total working hours – the equivalent of 72 million
fulltime jobs – will be lost by 2030 due to heat stress, it said.
“The effects of environmental degradation on the world of work are
particularly acute for the most vulnerable workers,” it said. “Rural
workers, people in poverty, indigenous and tribal peoples and other
disadvantaged groups are affected the most by the impact of climate
change.”
As such, climate change and environmental degradation further exacerbate
global inequality, which has risen sharply in recent decades.
According to the World Inequality Report 2018,
the top 1 percent of individuals have captured twice as much income
growth as the bottom 50 percent since 1980. This means “environmental
sustainability is also an issue of social justice,” said the ILO.
It claimed that 18 million more jobs would be created if the world could
meet the Paris Agreement’s goal of keeping the increase in global
temperatures to just 2°C above pre-industrial levels.
The ILO projected that while shifts away from carbon and resource
intensive industries toward greener technology would see 6 million jobs
lost in the short-term, it would also see the creation of 24 million
jobs, “meriting complementary policies to protect workers and ensure
that the transition is just.”
Demonstrators dressed as Donald Trump and as a polar bear are seen
during a demonstration in Bonn against the COP 23 UN Climate Change
Conference hosted by Fiji but held in Bonn, Germany November 11, 2017.
Source: Reuters/Wolfgang Rattay
Some 23 countries have already succeeded in growing their economies
while simultaneously reducing greenhouse gas emissions and their
environmental footprint, the report’s authors said.
Cambodia, for example, since 2013 has mainstreamed green growth into its
national economic development plan and employment legislation.
Mongolia, meanwhile, identifies “green employment” as a priority, aiming
to provide income to 80 percent of its working age population through
decent employment and to increase resilience to the negative impacts of
climate change.
“Low-income and some middle-income countries need support to develop
data collection, identify and adopt best practices, strengthen
implementation and finance both mitigation and adaptation strategies in
order to achieve a just transition to environmentally sustainable
economies and societies for all,” concluded the report.
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