The recent report of Greenpeace’s Energy [R]evolution claims that a shift to alternative energy sources (solar, geothermal, wind) can not only mitigate the effects of global warming but also create 11 million jobs in the next 20 years. We shed light on the report and delivers the facts

Greenpeace, the organization known for its engaged and sometimes bold environmental campaigns, recently released a report claiming that a shift to alternative energy sources will not only be sustainable for the planet but for the pocket of the millions in the workforce as well.

A solar house in Germany

In the 117-page report titled, “Energy [R]evolution,” the Amsterdam-based group, together with the European Renewable Energy Council, believes that the aggressive investment in renewable power will produce about 11.3 million jobs by 2030.

The report, the first “to systematically analyse global job impacts of a low-carbon energy future,” reveals that the shift will also cut the world’s carbon emissions in half by the year 2050. As an annual USD 360 billion industry, renewable power is envisioned to provide half of the world’s electric consumption.

Turning the green light on millions of jobs

As early as next year, the report calculates that green energy jobs around the world would have reached an estimated 9.3 million—200,000 more compared to business-as-usual approach of sticking with fossil fuel energy generation. The employment opportunities will revolve around direct jobs in “fuel production, manufacturing, construction, and operations and maintenance.” The report also states that jobs for coal power will decrease between 2010 and 2020. Both scenarios, Greenpeace believes, will lead to a “net gain in employment.”

By 2020, the loss of around half a million jobs in the fossil fuel sector will be compensated by the estimated 2 million jobs that will be generated by the “Energy [R]evolution” scenario. Between 2020 and 2030, the green energy sector is expected to grow by around 800,000 new jobs, thereby pushing the total jobs generated by Greenpeace’s plan to 11.3 million.

Great for the planet, great for the pocket

The “Energy [R]evolution” doesn’t focus on mere job production. Greenpeace believes that global carbon emissions will return to the current levels by 2020, and then be 50 percent below the 1990 levels by 2050, with average emissions of less than 1.3 billion tons annually. Emissions will be reduced through the use of existing technologies, taking into account energy efficiency, and of course, renewable energy – as well as the gradual phase out of fossil fuel and nuclear power.

According to the group, this so-called “energy efficiency” can be achieved by decreasing the per capita energy use in industrialized countries and slowing down the increase of energy demand in rapid economic growth areas such as China, India, Brazil, and Africa; thus “sharing” energy consumption in a more balanced way. This, in turn, supposedly is one of the keys to stabilizing the world’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, and then slowly reducing it by 2030 and beyond.

Irreversible

Greenpeace claims that because of the current economic downturn, a committed global investment in renewable energy technologies is a “win-win-win” scenario: a win for energy security, a win for the economy and a win for the climate. However, the organization does not elaborate exactly if the “Energy [R]evolution” will be able to completely reverse the effects of global warming, or if it is only designed to stop the problem from getting bigger.

Some pundits, however, categorically say that the climate change is irreversible. In a study published in the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,” scientists state that minimizing or eradicating carbon dioxide emissions won’t stop global warming.

“People have imagined that if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide that the climate would go back to normal in 100 years or 200 years. What we're showing here is that's not right. It's essentially an irreversible change that will last for more than a thousand years,” says Susan Solomon, one of the world’s top climate experts.

This study throws a dark cloud over the “Energy [R]evolution” report. A radical shift to alternative energy may not seem the solution to our environmental problems. It may also greatly compromise the development of emerging economies whose consumers, especially those in the poorer communities, still rely on traditional fuel sources for their energy as they remain the cheapest and most viable. It is also unclear whether those that will be laid off will have compatible jobs in sustainable power.

One then begs the question as to the motive behind “Energy [R]evolution.” Is it a provocation to oil firms and coal producers? Or is it a hyped-up publicity stunt giving the illusion that Greenpeace is doing something with the millions in donations it gets every year? Regardless, the report deserves our utmost attention if only to save the Earth and ourselves.