THE International Monetary Fund has said Nigeria and other countries may achieve net-zero greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050.
In a new report titled, ‘The right labour market policies can ease the green jobs transition,’ the Washington based lender said a drastic reduction in net emissions of greenhouse gasses is necessary if the world is to limit the average global temperature increase to below two degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels.
According to the IMF, this green transformation will also include the transformation of the labour market.
It said, “Higher wages on greener jobs could also help ease the transition. In our analysis of advanced economies, we find that the average green-intensive job earns about seven per cent more than the average pollution-intensive job, even when skills, gender, and age profiles are controlled for.
“This is good news, as the premium could attract workers to greener jobs. Workers may still face significant challenges during the transition. Indeed, the data suggest that it is tough to become greener. Our analysis estimates that the probability of an individual moving from a pollution-intensive to a green-intensive job is between four per cent and seven per cent.
“The odds are slightly better for someone moving from neutral to green— nine per cent to 11 per cent. In contrast, the chance of finding a green-intensive job, if your last job was also green, is much higher at around 41 per cent to 54 per cent. This doesn’t mean that workers in pollution-intensive jobs have no chance of finding greener employment, but they may need some help.
This explains why it is so important to craft labor-market policies that can help shift the balance toward greener jobs and ease the transition for workers. That means boosting workers’ ability to find greener jobs—through offering training programs—and reducing the incentives to stay in more pollution-intensive occupations.
“This includes gradually rolling back the job retention support introduced early in the pandemic as the recovery takes hold since such policies can weaken incentives to change jobs.”
The IMF added that the impact of this job shift would be different in emerging-market economies since a higher proportion of workers are employed in sectors such as mining.
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