Green Jobs Taskforce launched with remit to deliver long-term plan to help fill glaring gap in skills needed to build the net zero economy
The government has set its sights on delivering two million green skilled jobs across the UK by 2030, as it today launched a new Taskforce to chart a long-term plan to fill the growing green skills gap and support workers in high carbon industries as the economy shifts towards a net zero footing.
The Green Jobs Taskforce, which is to be chaired by Energy and Clean Growth Minister Kwasi Kwarteng and Skills Minister Gillian Keegan, aims to deliver an action plan to tackle the immediate and longer-term challenges of delivering skilled workers to enable the UK's net zero transition, the government said.
The top priorities for the Taskforce include ensuring the UK has the requisite skills to 'build back greener' from the pandemic, developing a long term skills plan for delivering net zero, ensuring good quality green jobs and a diverse workforce, and supporting a 'just transition' for high carbon sector workers, the government said.
The group is due to meet for the first time today and includes representatives from a host of businesses and employee groups, including National Grid, Nissan, Ørsted, BP, Tata Steel, and Barrat Developments, as well as TUC deputy general secretary Paul Novak and Prospect deputy general secretary Sue Ferns.
Figures from conservation group WWF, the Construction Industry Training Board, the Engineering Construction Industry Training Board, the East London Institute for Technology, Retrofit Works, and the University of Edinburgh will also sit on the Taskforce.
"It is now more critical than ever to make sure people get the skills they need to progress and that will help our economy to recover," Keegan said. "I am very much looking forward to co-chairing this important taskforce so we can create more, high quality green job opportunities, levelling up our economy and delivering on our commitment to be net zero by 2050."
The move comes as the Prime Minister gears up to shortly announce his hotly-anticipated 10-point green recovery plan, which is expected to feature support for offshore wind, nuclear power, hydrogen, and carbon capture and storage (CCS), among other areas.
Boosting green jobs and skills is therefore seen as key to Boris Johnson's green recovery ambitions, particularly with the economy suffering in the wake of a second Covid-19-induced lockdown and further job losses expected to mount.
Meanwhile, businesses are eagerly awaiting a host of crucial green policy frameworks in the coming weeks that should unlock a new wave of investment in low carbon infrastructure. The long-awaited Energy White Paper setting out a roadmap for decarbonising the UK's energy sector is now expected towards the end of November, while the National Infrastructure Strategy is also set to emerge before Christmas.
Yet there have long been concerns that the UK workforce is ill-equipped for the net zero transition and that skills shortages could undermine efforts to decarbonise the economy. Last month Nick Molho, CEO of the Aldersgate Group - who will also sit on the Green Jobs Taskforce - issued a report warning that a glaring deficit in low carbon skills risks hampering the UK's net zero transition, and that filling that gap should be a "national priority" given over 90 per cent of businesses in a 2018 survey said they already face a green skills deficit.
Earlier this year National Grid - another Taskforce member - issued its own report on building a net zero energy workforce, which warned thousands of people would have to be recruited across the energy sector to deliver new clean energy infrastructure. Acting corporate affairs director at National Grid, Rhian Kelly, said the economy of the future required "people who can create and connect a rapid charging infrastructure for electric vehicles, people who can use machine learning to predict how the weather will impact solar and wind power production, and people who can research, assess and develop new ideas on how we can switch to greener ways to heat our homes".
"We need taskforces like this so that we can work together to create training and maximise opportunities to ensure we have the right people with the right skills to deliver," she added.
The news came as government also released the results of its latest public attitudes tracker survey on climate change and the green economy, revealing a steady uptick in climate concern and an increasing understanding of the term 'net zero'.
The survey was carried out during September, and saw a representative sample of over 4,000 UK adults quizzed by pollster Kantar on behalf of the government, revealing two-thirds of people were aware of the concept of 'net zero'. The result marks a slight uptick from the 63 per cent who said the same during the last survey in June, and 52 per cent from the prior poll in March.
Moreover, 82 per cent said they were either very or fairly concerned about climate change, increasing slightly from 78 per cent in the March survey, but broadly remaining at a stable level in recent years. Similarly, 80 per cent of people voiced support for renewable energy, with just three per cent opposed, in line with general trends from previous surveys.
The government stressed that the surveys taken in 2020 were not comparable with previous surveys, due to pandemic restrictions forcing interviews with participants to take place largely online rather than in person, as with previous polls.
Nevertheless, Richard Black, director of the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) think tank, said the latest public attitudes tracker results showed a "really striking" uptick in concern about climate change and net zero awareness since Covid-19 struck.
"It suggests that the pandemic has actually heightened people's desire for action to address the great global challenge of climate change that will remain even after the Covid crisis has passed," he said, adding that it "sets the stage nicely" for the PM's upcoming 10-point green recovery plan.
Black said the poll findings "show clearly that people want action and government leadership on climate change". "Delivering now would therefore not only be a domestic win for the government, it would also show that we are getting on track to net zero and providing leadership ahead of next year's critically important UN climate summit which the UK will host in Glasgow," he argued.