Eleven million jobs at risk from EU Green Deal, trade unions warn
By Paul Homewood
h/t Dennis Ambler
The European Green Deal risks deepening economic and social divisions between east and western EU countries, trade unions say, warning the 27-member bloc risks imploding before it reaches its 2050 climate neutrality goal.
Trade unions have stepped up warnings that the Green Deal put forward by the European Commission in December last year will put millions of jobs at risk, without any assurances that workers in affected industries will have a future.
“We are talking about almost 11 million jobs directly affected in extractive industries, energy intensive industries and in the automotive industry,” said Luc Triangle, secretary general of IndustriAll, a federation of trade unions.
“Those jobs won’t necessarily disappear,” Triangle told EURACTIV in an interview. “But there needs to be a future perspective for jobs in these industries,” which is currently not clear, he said.
Last week, the European Commission tabled a groundbreaking EU Climate Law, aimed at putting into hard legislation the EU’s goal of becoming the first climate-neutral continent in the world by 2050.
The EU executive is now expected to follow-up with an industrial strategy on Tuesday (10 March), outlining new growth areas for Europe as it moves towards a greener and more connected future.
But while the draft strategy places great focus on digitalisation, it contains little for traditional manufacturing sectors like steelmaking, automotive and chemicals, which are expected to be hit hardest by the transition to net-zero emissions.
“It’s easy to say we need to reach ambitious climate targets by 2050 and 2030,” Triangle said. “But the industrial strategy should give the answer on the ‘how’ we will get there. And at the moment, we don’t have those answers yet”.
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
It is fortunate that the UK and Europe have massive investments in the countries that will continue to develop when Europe has become totally non-competitive with the rest of the world, viz, China, India, USA etc.
The , very optimistic,11m jobs estimate does not allow for the knock-on jobs that follow direct workers. What will the EU peoples work on when it cannot make anything competitively and even farming cannot use fuels? Look as though Europe will be the low cost transient, vegetarian, labour force of the world in a few years time.
There appears to be no politician who will stand-up for the truth about climate change.
Thank you jack broughton for this very interesting comment. A lot to think about here about this enthusiastic suicide by western civilization.
Aren’t you glad you are in the process of getting away from the EU? My guess is that other countries will follow your lead and someday, it will collapse.
The major difference between the United States and the EU is that we were never a group of independent countries, but rather individual colonies of England. Following the American Revolution, they formed the states of the United States in 1787. Although there was a large migration from Germany, they had all assimilated and we had similar cultural backgrounds and aspirations. The War of 1812, really brought the country together as one cohesive group. It is said that the War of 1812 made us America rather than a group of colonies or states. It defined who we are. Trying to push all of Europe into a similar mold was never going to be successful.
We only burned the White House for your own good!
“Aren’t you glad you are in the process of getting away from the EU? ”
Erm in case you have not noticed, the UK is going for exactly the same thing.
Nigel Sherratt and we only cleaned your clocks at the Battle of New Orleans for YOUR own good on January 8, 1815. Although the treaty of Ghent had been signed December 24, no one knew it yet. It is my belief that the Battle of New Orleans served to settle the matter once and for all beyond what a treaty could do. BTW I am a member of the Dolley Payne Madison Chapter of the United States Daughters of 1812 as a number of my ancestors served during that time as did their predecessors in the American Revolution.
Here is one of my favorite songs (I have the little 45 rpm of it) by Johnny Horton (The Battle of New Orleans):
If you lose 11 million jobs, you lose the jobs that depend on those people having jobs as well. It’s a vicious circle of unemployment – demand falls, so production must fall too.
I have said it many times over the last couple of years – net zero will lead to mass unemployment at least as bad as the Great Depression.There might “new” Green jobs but so what? They will not – cannot unless we a re changing economic laws – replace those that will be displaced.
It’s difficult to see anything other than 20% unemployment in the UK and much higher in those European countries that start with higher unemployment.
The tories are jubilant after the budget announcements and proud to be moving forward into the “Zero Carbon Economy” without a clue about what this actually means. They seem completely unaware of the disasters ahead regarding the suicidal cost in monetary terms and in terms of human suffering through job losses and loss of life due to the catastrophic increase in heating costs that will be slapped on consumer’s bills. What is their policy regarding flying? Surely this will have to be phased out in a zero carbon world. What the hell is going on? I think we should be told. Why are MPs not asking these questions?
Have tried writing to my MP about these exact points. Not expecting a common sense reply though. They really have no idea what they are doing.
Seconded. Have you written to “them” asking them to sign the petition noted in the last thread? I have. Do I expect a response? Of course not.
They believe technology will solve the problems and nothing much will change. As I explained to my daughter yesterday, carbon capture is making rocks out of the air. She looked at me like I was mad. But that’s what we are talking about, capturing CO2 as a gas and turning into a metal carbonate for storage. The cost will be astronomical unless the laws of physics change, yet politicians and commentators believe this will means we can keep on flying and all the rest.
Technology cannot capture and safely store CO2 in the massive amounts needed. Remember that just ONE part-per-million of oxidized carbon is almost 8 gigatons, 8,000 million metric tons. The CCS industry is hard pressed to store 2-3 million tons annually. And it’s not carbonate rocks, nor is it dry ice. It is CO2 under pressure buried geologically. Good luck?
The so-called EU climate law isn’t groundbreaking, it’s headbanging. The climate doesn’t depend on political decisions, no matter what bluster they come out with.
Re: “the climate doesn’t depend on political decisions”
Yes sir, of course. NASA says that it depends on the “Vital Signs of the Planet” that we must heed in order to save the planet.
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/03/10/vital-signs-of-the-planet/
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/03/10/vital-signs-of-the-planet/
Breaking ground by banging our heads on it.
Reblogged this on Jaffer's blog.
Yes folks, that’s the real game in town. Stary eyed dreamers with iPhones and a party service financed by daddy against people that are afraid of losing their jobs. So far, the unions thought it was cool to march with the FFF dreamers. But now they start to understand that it’s their member’s jobs that are on the line. Will be fun to watch. Where is the popcorn?
The strange transition of human civilization from the red menace to the green menace. Maybe it is our nature to need and therefore to have a menace of some color any color as long as it is a menace.
Eleven million jobs at risk
Only 11 million? Not if/when entire national economies start to crumble.
There’ll be more jobs at risk if the BBC’s latest nonsense (today) is followed up. They are reporting that Greens are advocating shutting down coal-fired power stations on the principle that it is an awful lot cheaper to build wind and solar – so much so that all coal power could be closed down. OK, fine. If they want to follow that route the ‘cheap’ energy providers from wind and solar should be made responsible for their own back-up: wind an solar farms should be made to supply a given power factor – say, 60% of nameplate? – and buy in enough guaranteed backup to meet that figure.
In the meantime, Shukman and Harrabin are wetting themselves reporting this.
It’s never been cheaper to build something new when you already have something doing the job.
Coal is being closed in the UK anyway, although I note weseem to have been running it at much higher utilisation than normal recently. Harrabin probably wouldn’t want to discuss that.
I did note that the consultation on the next round of CFDs has an extensive section on penalties for non-performance. Evidently there are concerns that these cheap bids will not result in real wind farms.
Completely agree. Supply contracts should be to supply 24/7 excepting force majeure. How they do it is up to them but they won’t be let off if there is a lightning strike since that is not a rare event so should be able to withstand that. And then just listen to the sound of them running away from building any new wind or solar.
“It’s easy to say we need to reach ambitious climate targets by 2050 and 2030,” Triangle said. “But the industrial strategy should give the answer on the ‘how’ we will get there. And at the moment, we don’t have those answers yet”.
This is precisely what ‘green’ politicians and IPCC policy makers have yet to tackle. They have the problem but not the answer. The solution? Act now it’s an emergency, an existential threat. How we get there? “lower carbon fuel emissions ASAP”. That buries zero carbon on the way to net-zero and devastates economies. Real smart.
Our chancellor made a brief obeisance to CC in his speech when he said there would be Carbon Capture and Storage plants somewhere creating lots of green jobs. My question – is this atmospheric CO2 they are capturing? Why not- it’s probably come all the way from China!! Big Job eh? We can try and reduce the globe’s CO2 this way. What a wonderful idea. Btw is the government planning to ban car imports having wrecked exports? Look forward to a Cuban jalopy future,
There was mention of the “first CCGT with CCS”, and an at least £800m subsidy to build it, paid for by consumers. I think this is more money for Drax.
The ‘greens’ cannot lower carbon fuel emissions to zero and also capture and store CO2 at the same time. The latter, like everything else we do, requires transportation. In this instance from the CCS plants to the geological storage areas. Solar and wind do not move people and the goods and services needed. Big job indeed…impossible and stupid.
International adviser to the CCS Institute is Lord Nicholas Stern.
https://www.globalccsinstitute.com/about/international-advisor/
He has done very nicely for himself out of this whole scam since his “Stern Review” in 2006.
https://www.finextra.com/pressarticle/23914/hsbc-establishes-climate-change-research-programme
“…the HSBC Climate Change Index … was launched last September 2007 and built by HSBC’s Quantitative Research Team in consultation with Lord Nicholas Stern.”
http://www.ideacarbon.com/about-us/advisors/index-2.html
On June 25th, 2008, Lord Nicholas Stern launched the Carbon Ratings Agency on the London Stock Exchange, shortly after becoming Vice Chair of the Agency.
Christiana Figueres played a vital role at The Carbon Ratings Agency as Vice Chair of its Ratings Committee for several years, before being recruited as head of the UNFCCC. She led the negotiations that delivered the Paris agreement, being called by the Guardian as the ‘woman tasked with saving the world from global warming’.
Our chancellor made a brief obeisance to CC in his speech when he said there would be Carbon Capture and Storage plants somewhere creating lots of green jobs. My question – is this atmospheric CO2 they are capturing? Why not- it’s probably come all the way from China!! Big Job eh? We can try and reduce the globe’s CO2 this way. What a wonderful idea. Btw is the government planning to ban car imports having wrecked exports? Look forward to a Cuban jalopy future,
Very good piece on GWPF on the cost of various heating options that a self-builder went through. One of the key ongoing costs is electricity since any pump system requires a lot of that as people have found out. Article provides a link to eco houses in Swindon connected to Kevin MacLoud with high electricity bills.
Great stuff, Gerry. Will come in very useful in my battle with my virtue signalling council who are determined to go “Zero40”. You should see some of the ways they’re going to achieve this (not).
Another interesting piece on Spiked Online. Ranges over more than climate change, but worth a listen:
https://www.spiked-online.com/podcast-episode/we-need-a-democratic-revolt-against-the-climate-extremists/