‘ Green economy’ to create thousands of jobs

Close to 500 000 jobs could be created within the next decade if South Africa moves towards a “green economy” – and that’s just the start of it.

These half-million new jobs are only those created directly from the move towards greener industries, including alternative energy sources and manufacturing of green products. The indirect or associated jobs could send the total number up towards the one million mark.

This emerged on the sidelines of COP17, where government officials and the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) spoke of the desire to shift towards this green economy. A recent study by the IDC, released last month, indicated that 462 000 new jobs could be created by 2024. But only with the correct public, private and community sector buy-in.

“It’s not set in stone that we can and will create this number of green jobs. But it is an incentive for us,” said national Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel.

Using the example of solar geysers, Patel said in buying them from China, only a few jobs would be created through installing them here. If there were local companies making those products, however, jobs would be created in manufacturing and installing.

“From there, we also need the community to buy into this whole thing. We need to have a market for these products for it to be successful. Every year about 200 000 electric geysers burst and are replaced with other electric geysers. We are busy working on a partnership that will get these replaced with solar geysers. That creates a market – but we need people to be involved with us,” Patel said at a Nedbank-hosted panel discussion on Friday.

On the panel was Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, who said across the world, governments were beginning to question existing financial systems, given the recent global market meltdown. South Africa would have to follow suit.

David Jarvis, one of the IDC researchers, had earlier said “whether we want to or not” there will be strong pressure to move towards green jobs. “South Africa must be part of this trend,” he said.

International Labour Organisation climate change specialist Ana Sanchez said economies were going green for a number of reasons – not all of them environmental.

“Some are going green for job creation, as we are seeing in South Africa now,” she said. - Sunday Independent