According to a 2016 report, reaching the global decarbonization targets ratified in the Paris Climate Agreement will require the world to quit coal completely by 2050. But that’s not all – rich nations will have to phase out the dirtiest fossil fuel by 2030, and China by 2040, in order to stay on a cost-effective and feasible pathway to keep global warming below 2°C. 

These figures come from a report, Implications of the Paris Agreement for Coal Use in the Power Sector, funded by the European Climate Foundation (ECF). “Science shows that the easiest way to meet our Paris commitment to keep warming well below 2°C and to pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C, as a first step, is to decarbonise the electricity sector by mid-century,” said report author Bill Hare.

While the world has not been phasing out coal nearly as quickly as Hare would endorse, coal does finally seem to be in terminal decline in the United States, one of those target rich nations expected to leave coal behind by 2030. After about 50 years of growth, coal production has now been waning in the U.S. since 2009. In tandem with this shift, employment in the coal sector has also been on the decline for years.

This is emblematic of a larger issue in the green energy transition. The U.S. alone is home to 1.7 million fossil fuel workers, all of whom stand to lose their livelihoods as the global energy landscape changes. While the outlook for fossil fuel jobs is murky at best, the global market for clean energy and carbon reduction technologies is on track to reach at least $23 trillion by 2030. This will involve the generation of hundreds of thousands of clean energy jobs, but there is no guarantee that those jobs will fill the vacuum in coal communities and other fossil fuel economies.

Many displaced fossil fuel workers won’t be able to transition directly into open slots for renewable energy jobs due to a critical skill gap. That being said, not all clean energy jobs will require a novel skill set that the average coal worker doesn’t already have. “There are also plenty of traditional economy roles that can quite easily transition to green jobs, such as from construction, electrical work and engineering,” the Wall Street Journal reported based on insights from Kenneth Gillingham, economics professor at the Yale School of the Environment.

The United States government is aiming to take advantage of that overlap in a new initiative funneling $428 million toward 14 domestic clean energy projects in 15 coal communities across the country. “The 14 projects selected for negotiation of award focus on manufacturing products and materials that address multiple needs in the domestic clean energy supply chain,” Mining.com reported earlier this week. “The selections will address five key supply chains – grid components, batteries, low-carbon materials, clean power generation and energy efficiency products.”

These 14 projects were hand-selected by the Department of Energy’s  Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains (MESC) to address critical energy supply chain vulnerabilities. All are led by small-and medium-sized businesses in communities where coal facilities have been decommissioned.

While this is a critical step toward a “just transition”  – wherein fossil fuel-dependent workers and their communities are provided a safety net to weather this major economic shift – some experts contend that a more robust policy framework will be needed at the federal level to ensure that no Americans are left behind in the critical fight against climate change. So far, almost all of the initiatives to safeguard such workers and communities have been driven from the grassroots level.

A 2022 report from the Brookings Institute posits that in order to enable and support a just transition, the federal government needs to create a dedicated Just Transition Office, “identify the key frictions in labor markets that prevent a smooth transition of workers across industries” for targeted investing and programming, and, most importantly, adequately fund those initiatives. “Federal funding must be commensurate to the challenge and include resources for retraining, relocating, and public investments to generate new sources of income for affected communities.” In light of the scale of this need, $428 million is just the first step.

By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com

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