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TERRENUS ENERGY

Green Policy & Finance

DPM Wong, India’s PM Modi discuss clean energy and fintech cooperation

(From left) Minister for Trade and Industry Gan Kim Yong, DPM Lawrence Wong, Indian PM Narendra Modi and Indian finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman. PHOTO: PRIME MINISTER’S OFFICE

NEW DELHI, 20 Sep (The Straits Times) – Singapore Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi discussed new areas of cooperation such as clean energy and fintech during a meeting in Indian capital city New Delhi on Monday.

Mr Modi was also briefed about the outcomes of the inaugural session of the India-Singapore Ministerial Roundtable (ISMR), which was held last Saturday.

He conveyed his good wishes for Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and the people of Singapore, and expressed his hope that initiatives such as the ISMR “would help further strengthen the bilateral relations between the two countries”.

Mr Wong, who is also Finance Minister, is on a five-day visit to India aimed at expanding cooperation between the two countries.

“We had excellent discussions on new areas of cooperation such as green hydrogen, solar energy, fintech, as well as data links,” said Mr Wong on Facebook following Monday’s meeting, which was also attended by Singapore Minister for Trade and Industry Gan Kim Yong and Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs of India Nirmala Sitharaman.

“India is an important strategic partner of Singapore across many sectors. I am glad that the pace of bilateral engagements has picked up substantially as the pandemic subsides,” he added.

He also said he looked forward to restarting the Singapore-India Hackathon, which was disrupted by Covid-19, “to build bridges between our young talents”.

The hackathon was held in 2018 and then in 2019 with mixed teams of university students from both countries racing to create software solutions to real-life problems in areas such as education and clean energy.

India and Singapore share close economic and political ties, with regular high-level political exchanges that have picked up again with an exchange of visits in recent months.

Singapore Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan was in India for the Special Asean-India Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in June, while Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, who is also Coordinating Minister for Social Policies, visited India in July.

The two sides held the 16th Foreign Office Consultations in Singapore in August.

Mr Wong, Dr Balakrishnan, Mr Gan, and Minister for Transport and Minister-in-charge of Trade Relations S. Iswaran formed the Singapore ministerial delegation at Saturday’s ISMR.

The Indian side included Ms Sitharaman, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal.

Economic ties between the two countries have been guided by the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement, which was signed in 2005.

In 2021, annual bilateral trade in goods stood at $26.8 billion. Singapore was the top source of foreign direct investment into India in the financial year 2021-22, accounting for 27 per cent of the country’s record-high US$83.5 billion (S$117.6 billion) inflow.

During his ongoing visit to India, Mr Wong met both federal and state leaders.

On Sunday, he met Gujarat chief minister Bhupendra Patel.

In a speech in Gujarat state on Sunday, Mr Wong highlighted the close ties between the two countries and the potential of cooperation in newer emerging areas such as fintech amid India’s growing digital economy.

“Singapore has long believed in the potential and promise of India,” he said on Sunday

“That is why we have been investing in India. Over the last 20 years, our investments in India have grown by about 20 times,” he said.

Author: Nirmala Ganapathy, India Bureau Chief

Global climate goals threatened by lack of clean tech collaboration: IEA

Birds fly over a closed steel factory where chimneys of another working factory are seen in the background, in Tangshan, Hebei province, China, February 27, 2016. Image: REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

LONDON, Sept 20 (Reuters) – Global efforts to reduce emissions and curb rising temperatures are threatened by a lack of collaboration between countries in sharing and developing new technology, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in a report on Tuesday.

Major economies around the world such as the United States, and European countries are seeking to reach net zero emissions by 2050 to try to limit a rise in global temperatures well below 2 deg C, requiring huge changes in energy production, transportation and food production.

“Through international collaboration, we can make the transition quicker, cheaper and easier for everyone,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said in a statement with the first Breakthrough Agenda report, released on Tuesday with the International Renewable Energy Agency and the United Nations (UN) Climate Change High Level Champions.

“Without this collaboration, the transition to net zero emissions will be much more challenging and could be delayed by decades,” he said.

The report said collaboration needed to ramp up and made 25 recommendations including increasing cross-border power super grids to support cross country trading in low-carbon power such as wind and solar.

It also said countries should agree a common date by which all new vehicles should be zero emission, such as electric vehicles, suggesting 2035 for cars and vans and 2040 for heavy duty vehicles.

“This will send a clear signal to industry and unlock larger economies of scale and faster cost reductions, making the transition more affordable for all countries,” the report said.

Countries should also work to increase the production of low-carbon steel to over 100 million tonnes by 2030 from less than 1 million tonnes today, it said.

The report was requested by world leaders at last year’s COP climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, to help align actions and scale up investment in technology in five major sectors – power, road transport, steel, hydrogen and agriculture – that account for around 60 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Author: Susanna Twidale

Solar PV employed around 3.4 million people in 2021

Image: Swinerton Renewable Energy

Almost half of the workers were employed in China, around 280,000 in North America, over 260,000 in Europe, and some 50,000 in Africa, according to a new report by the International Energy Agency (IEA). The vast majority of workers were employed in manufacturing and installation of new capacity, with solar jobs paying lower wage premiums than the nuclear, oil, and gas industries.

From pv magazine

The energy sector employed over 65 million people in 2019, or 2% of global employment, according to the newly published World Energy Employment Report by the IEA. Half of this workforce is employed in the clean energy sector, with solar PV employing more workers than any other power generation technology.

According to the report, power generation employment totaled 11.2 million in 2019, comprised of 3 million in solar PV, 2 million in coal power, and 1.9 million in hydro. Onshore and offshore wind power employed 1.2 million and nuclear power 1 million. Employment in other renewables totaled around 710,000 employees.

The agency estimates that employment in the entire energy sector in 2021 was up by around 1.3 million and could increase by another 6 percentage points by 2022, with clean energy accounting for all of the growth. Energy investment could rise by 8% in 2022, reaching $2.4 trillion, but with almost half of the increase in capital spending linked to higher costs.

Around 3.4 million workers were employed in solar PV in 2021, almost half of which in China, enabled by lower-cost labor, according to the report. North America employed around 280,000 workers and Europe over 260,000. There were around 50,000 people working in the solar industry in Africa, with this number set to grow due to the proliferation of on- and off-grid solutions in the continent, the agency said.

Most employees in the industry work in manufacturing and installation of new capacity, with manufacturing jobs being strongly concentrated in a few countries: China alone accounted for 260,000 workers in the production of polysilicon, wafers, cells, and modules.

“Residential solar panels are often installed by construction workers and electricians who also work on other projects, such that many solar PV jobs are not full-time, and it can be difficult to count employees accurately,” the agency noted.

Shortage of skilled labor poses a major challenge for the industry, which is expected to see continuous growth in annual capacity installation in every IEA scenario. Around $215 billion were invested in the industry in 2021, an annual average growth of 5% over the previous decade, according to the report. Total installed capacity worldwide stood at 740 GW in 2019, comprising 425 GW of utility-scale installations and 315 GW of residential and commercial and industrial (C&I) installations.

Construction of new projects, including manufacturing of components, is reportedly the main driver of employment across the energy sector, employing over 60% of the workforce. Industries with a higher share of workers in construction, like solar, have lower wage premiums than industries like nuclear, oil, and gas, according to the report. The solar industry also has less trade union representation than fossil fuel industries, where labor representation has led to higher wages.

According to the IEA’s Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario, 14 million new clean energy jobs will be created by 2030, with another 16 million workers shifting to new roles related to clean energy. In this scenario, around 60% of new employees will require at least two years of post-secondary education, making worker training essential to the sustainable development of the industry.

The report also shows that currently women are strongly under-represented in the energy sector, accounting for 16% of the sector’s workforce, compared to 39% of global employment.

“Women make up a very small share of senior management in energy, just under 14% on average. However, there is substantial variation among energy sectors, with the percentage shares in nuclear and coal the lowest at 8% and 9%, respectively, whereas electric utilities are among the highest with nearly 20%. This compares with 16% of women in senior management economy-wide,” the report says. There are no major differences in the share of women’s employment between fossil fuels and clean energy globally.

Author: Beatriz Santos

What does the green transition mean for energy jobs?

Workers in the Anglo Ashanti mine at a depth of about 330 metres in Obuasi, Ghana. Image: World Bank Photo Collection, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Flickr.

As calls grow for climate action, the shift from fossil fuels to cleaner power sources raises questions about who can access the new jobs, what skills they require and how much they pay.

From The Thomas Reuters Foundation

LONDON, Sept 14 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – The energy crisis fuelled by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has put renewed focus on how countries generate and use their power, with several European nations rushing to wean themselves off Russian gas amid a global shift to cleaner energy sources.

As the world seeks to decarbonise by switching from fossil fuels such as coal and oil to renewables like solar and wind, many energy workers now find themselves in the same position.

The rise of clean energy is raising questions about who has access to these new jobs, what skills they require, how much they pay, and what can be done to help communities that rely on traditional extractive industries make the green transition.

The Thomson Reuters Foundation spoke to climate experts to find out more about what the changing energy mix means for jobs.

How many green energy jobs are there?

About 65 million people work in the energy industry worldwide, and clean energy workers now account for more than half of them, according to a recent report by the International Energy Agency (IEA).

These clean energy jobs include workers in bioenergy supply, low-carbon power generation including nuclear and renewables, power grids and storage, manufacturing of electric vehicles, and energy efficiency, according to the IEA’s definition.

“It’s clear that the clean energy economy isn’t around the corner, it’s here today,” said Joel Jaeger, a research associate at the World Resources Institute, a think tank.

He said these jobs have been more resilient to the economic impacts of the pandemic compared to fossil fuel sectors, with oil and gas having not recovered their employment levels since 2020 despite the subsequent high prices of the two commodities.

If current international climate pledges are met, the IEA predicts that an additional 13 million workers will be employed in clean energy and related sectors by 2030, outnumbering the expected decline in traditional fossil fuel industries.

But if countries accelerate decarbonisation to get on a path to net zero by 2050, that number of expected jobs would double, the IEA says.

This transition could also change the gender imbalance of the energy industry: according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), women hold 32 per cent of jobs in renewable energy, on average, compared to 22 per cent of those in oil and gas.

Workers weigh a bag of coal outside a warehouse in an industrial area in Mumbai, India May 31, 2017. Image: REUTERS/Shailesh Andrade

Where are the green jobs located?

Jobs in clean and renewable energy are located around the world, but the biggest and fastest growing workforce is in Asia.

China, home to almost 30 per cent of the global energy workforce, dominates the manufacturing of solar panels – also known as photovoltaics (PV) – and employs nearly half of those working in the field, according to the IEA.

“Different regions are further along than others,” said Jaeger, pointing out that the Middle East and Russia are still dominated by traditional fossil fuel jobs.

“Emerging market and developing economies are going to have more jobs no matter what, because those economies are generally a lot more labour intensive,” he said, citing the example of India where clean energy jobs now outnumber fossil fuel roles.

China’s domination of solar PV manufacturing was partly made possible because the equipment is easier to export than other technologies, said Aurélien Saussay, an economist at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics.

Wind turbines, by comparison, have strong regional hubs in northern Europe and the United States which are less threatened by competition from Asia, he said.

Are they high-quality jobs?

Energy jobs in both new and traditional sectors tend to be higher-skilled and better-paid compared to the rest of the economy.

About 45 per cent of energy roles are high-skilled compared to a quarter of general jobs, according to the IEA.

However, workers in coal, oil and gas tend to enjoy higher wages than those in renewable industries like wind and solar.

In the United States, for example, workers in natural gas and coal have a wage premium of 59 per cent and 50 per cent respectively compared to national median hourly pay, far higher than the 36 per cent for wind and 28 per cent for solar, according to the US Energy and Employment Report.

This may be because traditional energy jobs tend to be more unionised and have benefitted from decades of labour representation, while clean energy sectors have a larger share of part-time or contract work, according to the IEA’s report.

This is especially true in emerging markets and developing economies, the IEA said, including in India where coal workers are paid around three to four times the national average.

Analysts also say that more lower-skilled jobs are becoming available as new clean energy sectors move from the research and development phase towards installation and construction of the new infrastructure.

This shift could mean new clean jobs offer less in terms of wages and security, yet are more accessible to those with lower levels of education.

Can fossil fuel workers transition to green jobs?

The good news for fossil fuel energy workers is that many of their skills are transferable in a greener economy.

Those working on offshore oil rigs, for example, have many skills that would be useful to offshore wind farms, while project managers for traditional energy infrastructure will likely be well-equipped for similar positions in new industries.

The biggest issue, however, according to the economist Saussay, is that clean energy roles will not necessarily be created in the same places as traditional jobs which were tied to fossil fuel resources in relatively remote areas.

“They tended to be creating highly-paid jobs in areas that had high unemployment and low wages,” Saussay added, highlighting traditional industrial regions around the world.

By comparison, clean energy jobs are more spread out and not concentrated in economically deprived areas.

He said this underlines the need to retrain and reskill traditional energy workers, while creating new employment prospects where they live to avoid social dislocation.

“If you don’t put in place accompanying policies, what you end up with is a community that is bereft of economic opportunity,” Saussay said.

Author: Jack Graham