This blog outlines the potential impacts on both earnings and carbon emissions from expanding skilled migration to support the green transition.
The green transition is accelerating. Globally, more than 80 countries have pledged to substantially reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in the coming decades, requiring a ‘green transition’. There are many constraints governments face in meeting these ambitious targets, including insufficient financing, technology access, and political will. But one of the biggest constraints, and very seldom addressed, is a lack of skilled workers. Analysis by the Boston Consulting Group, for example, suggests that in the top ten carbon-emitting economies, at least five million workers will be lacking by 2030.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has acknowledged that shortages of skilled workers are already translating into project delays and impacting investment decisions. No country currently has enough domestic talent (in areas such as solar panel and heat pump installation) to support the green transition. Current training pipelines are too small and are not being scaled up quickly enough to meet the urgent investment needs required by climate targets.
Skilled migration is one solution for richer countries. Yet given the world as a whole needs an increase in the stock of green-skilled workers, it would do little by itself to support reduced global emissions. This suggests that skilled migration needs to be coupled with greater training opportunities in countries of origin if it is to have the desired impact on both individual earnings and carbon emissions.