Australia too slow preparing for ‘green collar’ jobs
10 July 2008
The challenge to employment in Australia caused by climate change will be the focus of a keynote presentation to a national research conference in Launceston today.
Oona Nielssen, Executive Director of the Dusseldorp Skills Forum, said climate change presented Australia with its greatest economic risk but opportunities also existed to create an estimated 3.25 million new 'green collar' jobs by 2025.
However she said the acceptance of the need for new, environmentally sustainable 'green collar' jobs - and the new skills to go with them - has been slow.
"The positive economic opportunities from climate change will only come to fruition if the Australian workforce is properly skilled and resourced to underpin truly sustainable industries and workplaces.
"Our current national efforts in skilling and training to help create and then sustain a low carbon economy are clearly insufficient.
"So far, too little attention has been paid to this issue and yet it is one of the biggest challenges posed by climate change.
"In order to make deep cuts in greenhouse emissions there will need to be profound change in the industries that have a high environmental impact."
However, Ms Nielssen said greenhouse emissions could be reduced without endangering long term employment growth, likening the depth of change to the industrial revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries.
"The changes to how we skill ourselves and how we work will be profound but they're not insurmountable. Just as our forebears managed the change from pre-industrial horse-powered society to an industrial, oil fuelled economy, so can manage a similar transition from a high carbon economy to a new, low carbon way of life.
Ms Nielssen will speak at 8.30am at 'No Frills' 2008 - the 17th National Vocational Education and Training Research Conference, being held at the University of Tasmania, Newnham Campus, Launceston, from 9-11 July.
Further information: Chris Booth, Manager Marketing Services, NCVER, +61 8 8230 8400 Sarah Williams, Media Consultant, TAFE Tasmania
