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Add to Preferred SourcesWith millions of workers increasingly affected by the climate crisis the route to securing livelihoods in the future lies in a wholesale transformation of how we power the planet and manage our resources, the UN chief said at a COP25 climate action event focused on greener jobs.
“We are still losing the climate race”, Secretary-General António Guterres said in Madrid, “but we can choose another path, the path of climate action and well-being for people and planet”, which is about jobs, health, education, opportunities and the future.
He maintained that the answer to the climate crisis “lies in transforming how we generate our power, design our cities, and manage our land”, but it also requires actions “consistent with making people’s lives better”.
The Paris Agreement agreed in 2015 included “a just transition” for people whose jobs and livelihoods are impacted by moving “from the grey economy to the green”, he noted, part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
“We can no longer refuse to face up to the climate crisis”, he spelled out, urging governments to commit, businesses to lead and people everywhere to “embrace the transformation that will bring us to a carbon-neutral world by 2050”.
Mr. Guterres spoke encouragingly about “enormous opportunities” linked to climate action.
According to the UN chief, shifting to a low-carbon economy represents a $26 trillion-dollar growth opportunity that could create 65 million new jobs by 2030 – with solar, wind and geothermal energy already being the fastest-growing job creators in several economies.
“The green economy is the economy of the future and we need to make way for it right now”, he stated, encouraging countries to re-train people so they can “switch careers with the concept that education now became a lifelong enterprise”.
Stressing that the transition to a low-carbon future be “fair and inclusive”, he said that this means “a future of green and decent jobs…of thriving, resilient communities, cities and countries.”
Without achieving our climate goals, the Secretary-General maintained that only the richest would survive. And because “we cannot continue to have one foot in both the grey and the green economies at the same time”, he underlined that developed nations must fulfil their pledges under the Paris Agreement to mobilize at least $100 billion dollars a year for mitigation and adaptation in developing nations.
Original source: ILO
Published on 12 December 2019