Solar, wind… renewable energies already generate nearly 13 million jobs worldwide, calculated the think tank REN21, which deplores however that the investment in these energies remains insufficient in spite of their social benefits.
“Because of inflation, energy costs or lack of vision”, the number of people without electricity should increase in 2022, for the first time in a long time, from 20 million to some 774 million in total, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, says, on the basis of provisional data, the report published on Wednesday.
In the wake of COVID and the energy crisis linked to the war in Ukraine, governments, from the United States to the European Union (EU) or Japan, have launched support plans for renewable energies (ENR). “These measures open up remarkable prospects in terms of economic growth and employment in energy for the years to come”, notes the network of experts in this report devoted to the benefits of renewable energies (access to energy, reduced cost, health, fight against global warming, etc.).
In 2021, more than 12.7 million jobs were linked to renewable energies, according to REN21.
In terms of qualification, 70% of the workforce currently employed in the oil and gas sector has skills also demanded in green energies, underlines this assessment.
In the EU, the objectives of the REPowerEU plan, which aims to abandon Russian fossil fuels, will require the creation of 3.5 million jobs by 2030, when the American plan (IRA) can generate nearly 5 million in energy, according to these estimates. India hopes for more than 3.4 million new jobs by 2030 in wind and solar power. This country, which has imposed a tax on imports of photovoltaic cells, has a 3 billion dollar plan to support national production of solar panels.
And yet: if investment in renewables reached the record of 495.4 billion dollars in 2022, it remains far from the 1100 billion allocated to fossil fuels, notes REN21 in its balance sheet. Developing countries, home to two-thirds of the world’s population, have benefited from only one-fifth of the investment in renewables. In 2021, private banks provided 395 billion to fossil projects, and 53 billion to renewable projects.
As a result, 113 countries still cannot provide access to electricity to all their inhabitants, and only 54 of them have set targets to improve this situation, according to the report. “Despite the vast benefits of renewables, most countries and institutions continue to invest in fossil fuels, including gas, depriving their citizens of potential development gains,” notes Rana Adib, the director of REN21, quoted in the report.