Clean energy would create trillion-dollar market and millions of jobs, IEA says

Amy Myers Jaffe notes factors for estimating the number of jobs that might be created in the transition to a clean energy market, via a MarketPlace podcast.
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"The goals the U.S. and other countries have set to cut greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade are only about 20% of what’s needed to limit global warming to 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius, according to a new report from the International Energy Agency.

Countries need to invest a lot more in clean energy, per the IEA. The organization estimates that investment in clean energy could reap economic benefits, including some 13 million new jobs and a trillion-dollar clean energy market that would rival the size of the oil market currently.

To get these kinds of numbers, researchers often start with demand.

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'They can then try to figure out, you know, how many solar panels is that? Therefore, how many manufacturing jobs is that?' said Amy Myers Jaffe, who runs the Climate Policy Lab at Tufts University’s Fletcher School.

Just as there is a lot of data about the demand for electricity, Jaffe said, there’s also plenty about how many people work in the energy industry now.

'People who work with the ships, people who work with the drilling, and then we also know how many people it takes to install solar farms and to manufacture batteries,' she said."

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