26 February 2009: Tools for labour market assessments: Assessing environment-friendly policies from a labour and social perspective

Speaker: Peter Poschen, ILO's International Institute for Labour Studies

Moderated by: Philippe Pochet (General Director, ETUI)
Comments: Joël Décaillon (ETUC)

Briefing:

In tackling climate change, an understanding of the labour market and social implications of environmental policies is vital. How would environment-friendly policies affect employment and, more generally, society?

Addressing climate change is one of the most important policy challenges facing the international community. Failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will have a dramatic effect on the daily life of people across the world (especially in developing countries) as well important economic and social costs.

Environment-friendly policies can be the source of important levels of employment creation. Taxing pollution for example provides the scope for reducing taxes elsewhere (for example on labour) making it more attractive. New sectors of the economy can also become important sources of employment such as renewables and recycling. Environment-friendly policies can however also hit employment in other sectors such as car manufacturing and construction. Job quality also needs to be addressed in environmental policy discussions.

Structural issues are also of considerable importance. The scale of labour reallocation needed to meet environmental targets is likely to be significant – at least as large as that associated with other structural changes like information and communication technology. New skills, new labour regulations and effective placement services will be required. The level of investment needed in new sources of energy and new forms of energy will also be enormous and market forces alone are unlikely to generate sufficient investment in new technology and skills to match what would be required to address environmental concerns.

In terms of our society, income distribution concerns will be important as low-income households are likely to be disproportionately affected by the rise in the price of goods and services resulting from the pursuit of environmental policies. At global level developing countries will be faced with significant environmental challenges and the need to invest in new green technology despite the fact that such countries have not historically been major contributors to global warming.