RIO+20 FEATURE: SEVEN ISSUES, SEVEN EXPERTS – JOBS
New York, Jun 21 2012 4:10PM
World leaders, along with thousands of participants from governments, the private sector, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other groups have come together in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to take part in the UN Sustainable Development Conference (Rio+20).
In our <em>Seven Issues, Seven Experts</em> series, UN officials tell us more about the key issues being discussed at the conference and how we can contribute to make our planet more sustainable.</p>
In the seventh and final installment, the UN News Centre spoke with the Director of the Job Creation and Enterprise Development Department at the International Labour Organization (ILO), Peter Poschen, about how sustainable enterprises can help not only the environment in the long-term, but also be part of the solution to the current global economic crisis which has sparked high levels of unemployment.</p>
<strong>UN News Centre:</strong> What do jobs have to do with sustainable development?</p>
<div id="EmbedPhotoRight" style="width:210px;"><"/News/dh/photos/large/2012/June/06-16-youth.jpg" class="lightbox" title="Young people attend 'Green Jobs: A Chance for Youth' event at Rio+20. UN/F. Soto Nino" rel="gallery-default"><img class="Embed" src="/News/dh/photos/large/2012/June/06-16-youth.jpg" style="width:200px; height:133px;">
<p class="phtocaption2">Young people attend 'Green Jobs: A Chance for Youth' event at Rio+20. UN/F. Soto Nino</p>
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<strong>Peter Poschen:</strong> Jobs play an enormous social development function. Reducing poverty is basically not possible without people being in productive and well-paying jobs. Productive work is the driver of the economy – that is what creates value and increases the living standards of society and people. What is critical is that jobs also be part of this sustainable development path.</p>
Over the past five years now, we have been emphasizing the notion of green jobs. We see that as an important component, an important part of that transformation towards an environmentally sustainable green economy. These are jobs that actively reduce the environmental impact of economic activity in an enterprise. They avoid greenhouse gas emissions, reduce waste, and increase the efficiency with which we use energy or natural resources. We see the creation of these jobs as a good way of linking our need to become more environmentally sustainable, create additional employment and generate value and growth.</p>
<strong>UN News Centre:</strong> What do governments need to do to stimulate the creation and growth of sustainable enterprises and, through that, the creation of green jobs?</p>
<strong>Peter Poschen:</strong> Well, enterprises react to the economic signals they receive. They react to demand and prices, so governments need to send the right signals to the private sector in order to avoid excessive use of natural resources, and direct growth into unsustainable directions.</p>
We really need policies that bear economic, social and environmental dimensions in mind and do not treat them as separate. Something that stands out among the policy instruments that can be used by governments in order to move into a sustainable development direction is the eco tax, which punishes resource consumption and pollution by making them more expensive. It then uses that revenue to reduce the price of labour by investing in skills for workers and reducing the costs of social protection for them.</p>
Eco taxes do not increase the economic burden on the economy, but favour positive outcomes as they help produce more jobs while also reducing negative environmental impacts. The ILO estimated that some 60 million additional jobs can be created through the use of this policy. </p>
<div id="EmbedPhotoLeft" style="width:210px;"><"/News/dh/photos/large/2011/September/27-09-2011greenjobs.jpg" class="lightbox" title="Accessing green jobs will be critical for achieving sustainable development goals. Photo: UNEP" rel="gallery-default"><img class="Embed" src="/News/dh/photos/large/2011/September/27-09-2011greenjobs.jpg" style="width:200px; height:133px;">
<p class="phtocaption2">Accessing green jobs will be critical for achieving sustainable development goals. Photo: UNEP</p>
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It is also important that governments stimulate green investments that encourage the use of energy efficiency in buildings, industry and transport, and that protect and restore natural resources – be that land, forest, water, fish, etc. In many cases this will require targeted support because these economic signals are not reaching important parts of society, so we need targeted measures, and public investments are an important element for this. For example, we still have 1.3 billion people in the world who have no clean energy at all. This has not gone away with the enormous increase in energy use we have seen in the world, so we need targeted measures to reach people who are not reached by the normal markets.</p>
A group that is going to be particularly important in terms of employment creation is small and medium-sized enterprises. They represent anywhere between two-thirds and three-quarters of all employment in the world, so it is really fundamental that they play a central role in this shift towards a more sustainable economy, and that requires policies to be customized so that these small- and medium-sized enterprises can seize the opportunity of greening the economy and prosper.</p>
<strong>UN News Centre:</strong> Could you give an example of an initiative succeeding in encouraging sustainable enterprises?</p>
<strong>Peter Poschen:</strong> Well, the use of renewable sources of energy has been growing very quickly – at over 20 per cent a year in employment terms. This use is still led by a number of European countries, the United States, China and Brazil, but we see it spreading to more countries. </p>
South Africa has initiated a new growth strategy that includes renewable energy as one of its components and it has targets to create jobs in this area, and then we have countries like Bangladesh, where we have a non-governmental organization that has taken clean electricity with photovoltaic panels to more than a million homes. They have created jobs directly for women who install, maintain and administer the electricity that is generated there, and there is the enormous spin-off effect in downstream employment from using the energy that is now available in the village.</p>
<strong>UN News Centre:</strong> It seems that there are many employment opportunities in sustainable enterprises, yet there is a high rate of unemployment, particularly among young people. Is there a disconnect between the two?</p>
<div id="EmbedPhotoRight" style="width:210px;"><"/News/dh/photos/large/2011/October/31-10-2011socialunrest.jpg" class="lightbox" title="Young people have protested around the world for more jobs and equality. Photo: ILO" rel="gallery-default"><img class="Embed" src="/News/dh/photos/large/2011/October/31-10-2011socialunrest.jpg" style="width:200px; height:133px;">
<p class="phtocaption2">Young people have protested around the world for more jobs and equality. Photo: ILO</p>
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<strong>Peter Poschen:</strong> Very much so, yes. Last year, the ILO published a report on the skills needed for the green economy and it shows that it is a bottleneck in many countries and in many sectors, and that the right qualifications are not available in the labour market for these sectors that are growing rapidly in the face of the economic crisis.</p>
So, we have an ironic situation that, on the one hand, there is gaping unemployment, partic
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