Green Transition in Canada – The $2 trillion road to net zero needs a national strategy for green skills

We know the consequences of climate change. We know the causes, too. We even know what can be done to address it.

This journey will require new approaches to sustainable finance, if we’re to generate the $2 trillion needed to finance the transition. Overall, capital is not in short supply. Investible projects, with reasonable returns, are. What’s needed? An overhaul of industrial regulation and tax policy, and more government backstops, to offset the inherently risky frontier of clean technology, sustainable infrastructure and new consumer products. A lack of consistent and reliable policies continues to impede Canada’s ability to attract the sort of private capital needed to finance the transition.

And we’ll need people—a lot of them—to focus on the skills required to power the transition, install neighbourhood solar grids, maintain new EV fleets, and reform farming practices to ensure Canada’s ample soil is used more actively to absorb carbon from the atmosphere. Estimates suggest Canada will need to retrain 100,000 workers with new green skills, and add up to 200,000 more like them to the labour force as early as 2030.

A national strategy for green skills

All the clean innovation we can muster won’t succeed if there aren’t enough engineers with the know-how to deploy carbon capture systems, or contractors who can install heat pumps. We’ll need comprehensive strategies to ensure that Canada is ready to mobilize, and invest in, a green labour force. Teachers will need course content on emissions, and to educate their students on how they can develop new “green” skills to thrive in changing world. Skilled tradespeople will need to become versed in clean technologies, to help homeowners make cleaner choices. We’ll need farmers trained in monitoring how well their soils are storing carbon from the atmosphere. Government can support these changes with skills training programs for displaced oil workers, a green higher-education strategy, and immigration policies that attract people with the green skills we’ll need in abundance.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story @  The $2 Trillion Transition: Canada’s Road to Net Zero