MONACO – When environment ministers from some 100 countries meet here on February 20-22 for UNEP’s Governing Council and Environmental Forum, talks will focus on environmentally friendly “green growth” and ways and means by which the world can achieve a low-carbon economy. The employment and development potential of combating climate change is only now being understood as a part of this effort. UNEP has invited the International Labour Organization and the International Trade Union Confederation to contribute to these discussions.

Changes underway are a result of the Kyoto Protocol, but they are also partly being made in anticipation of deeper emission cuts to come. Equally important, the perception of organized labor and industry concerning environmental issues is changing dramatically. Environmental regulation was sometimes viewed with suspicion and concern for business and labour. Now, business sees profits and unions see jobs.

Consider these facts:

·amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160; A Washington-based consulting firm estimates that the U.S. environmental industry generated more than $340 billion in sales and almost $50 billion in tax revenues in 2005. The 5.3 million workers in the environmental industry outnumber pharmaceutical workers ten to one.

·amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160; A British company specializing in improving the energy efficiency of homes was floated on the London Stock Exchange last June and now employs 4,000 people who once worked in nearby, now closed, coal mines.

·amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160; A study prepared for the German Ministry of Environment estimates that employment in the German environmental technology industries will surpass employment in the automobile industry by 2020.

·amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160; China has some 1,000 solar thermal energy firms, generating sales of $2.5 billion and employing 600,000 workers in manufacturing and installation.

·amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160;amp#160; The Indian city of Delhi is introducing new eco-friendly compressed natural gas buses, which will create an additional 18,000 new jobs.

These trends look set to continue. The United Nations Environment Programme’s Sustainable Energy Finance Initiative estimates that investment in renewable energy has reached $100 billion worldwide, or 18% of new investment in the power sector. The Initiative, which involves some 170 financial institutions, also estimates that market financing for clean and renewable energies could reach $1.9 trillion by 2020.

International efforts are now beginning to bear fruit. The Clean Development Mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol could channel $100 billion in funds from North to South for investment in carbon offsetting projects such as renewable energy schemes and tree planting. The Bali conference last year agreed to include avoided deforestation in tropical countries into a new climate regime, which could generate new employment opportunities in sustainable management, conservation, and tourism. Several countries, including Costa Rica, Norway, and New Zealand, have pledged carbon neutrality, which in turn will require investment and employment in carbon-friendly sectors.

Significantly, labor is adding to the effort. At Bali, the global trade union movement signaled its commitment to an 85% reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, underlining the perceived value of environmentally sustainable development and a future in “green jobs.” These jobs will play a vital role in reducing the environmental footprint of economies and promoting sustainable production and consumption patterns. In a rapidly greening labor market, those jobs lost to environmental unsustainability will have to be replaced by just transitions involving the promotion of social security, economic diversification and retraining.amp#160;

Yet green jobs are not enough. Meeting the challenge of climate change will require a new development model that combines reduced emissions with a better future for the vast majority of people and the opportunity to earn a living in a decent job.

Last month, President Hu Jintao of China called for the realization of sustainable development and decent work by advancing “economic globalization in the direction of balanced development, shared benefit and win-win progress and to make sure that international economic, trade and financial institutions provide favorable conditions … so that the 21st century is genuinely a century of development for all … to realize sustainable development and for the vast majority of workers to enjoy decent work”.

Clearly, change is in the air. Our responses to climate change must have a social dimension.amp#160; Workers, employers and governments must engage in dialogue to put in place the social policies which ensure that green jobs are decent jobs. Only in this way can the poor and the jobless from Marseille to Mumbai and Sao Paulo to Shanghai be optimistic that creating an environmentally-sustainable world will also deliver decent, environmentally-sustainable work.