The Green Jobs Mirage
By Paul Homewood
Ed Miliband stood up at his party conference last week and promised
Labour will have a world leading commitment in government to take all of the carbon out of our energy by 2030. A route map to one million new green jobs in our country.
As we know, these nonsensical promises that pluck numbers out of the air are commonplace. Back in 2009, the same Miliband, then Energy & Climate Change Secretary, pledged that 400,000 green jobs would be created by 2015.
Of these:
Less bullishly, DECC now talk of “supporting jobs” rather than “creating jobs”. In June 2013, the Press Release for the Energy Bill talked of:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-energy-infrastructure-investment-to-fuel-recovery
Six months later, 50,000 of these jobs seem to have disappeared!
And the reality?
Well, according to DECC:
So only 3800 jobs have been added in the wind and solar sectors, which, significantly, includes the “wider supply chains”.
As we already know, the Dept of Business has stopped updating the LCEGS (Low Carbon and Environmental Goods and Services) data, presumably because the claimed increase in jobs was not happening. Therefore, I think we can safely assume that Miliband’s 400,000 jobs won’t miraculously appear by next year.
As for the total number of jobs supported by the wind and solar sectors, the numbers are pretty underwhelming too.
A total of 51,000 pales into insignificance when account is taken of the number of jobs lost as a result of higher energy prices, not to mention those lost at conventional power stations that are being shut down.
The Telegraph reported a couple of months ago that subsidies for renewable energy had reached £2.6bn in 2012/13, a figure that will continue to rise sharply in years to come.
I make that £684K per year for each job.
One question remains. Why do the MSM blithely cut and paste this nonsense instead of checking the facts for themselves?
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
These lies and new one will occur as long as stupid electors continue to vote in favor of liers…
The average productivity of each of these “green” jobs is incredibly low. That is why they are all hugely subsidised.
A nice collection of quotes and related info.
When I looked into the “green jobs” issue in Washington State I found the work categories rather surprising. For example, in one case a city bus was reworked to run on biofuel or used oil from french fry equipment or something. Actually, I have forgotten because that wasn’t the point. The point was that after the conversion, the bus driver’s job was classed as a green-job. I think about half the green job were like this.
And they wonder why we don’t believe them.
Just as well Milliband minor wasn’t promising British green jobs for British workers as I suspect a lot of the contracts for installing offshore wind farms have gone to our European cousins.
‘One question remains. Why do the MSM blithely cut and paste this nonsense instead of checking the facts for themselves?’
Well we all know the answer: because they are mindlessly promoting ‘man-made global warming’ fantasies.
The only green jobs they’re trying to make sure of are their own. With as much green as possible (US slang for $$, from the color of the $1 bill).