U.S. losing clean-energy jobs even as climate change looms
LOS ANGELES — The U.S. shed more than half a million clean energy jobs in March and April, a new report says, reversing years of growth in an industry that has helped reduce air pollution and emissions responsible for climate change.
Clean-energy employment has fallen by 17 percent since the coronavirus pandemic brought much of daily life to a halt, according to unemployment data analyzed by BW Research and published by advocacy group Environmental Entrepreneurs.
“These are higher numbers than expected, and we were expecting bad numbers,” said Greg Wetstone, president of the American Council on Renewable Energy, a trade group. “It’s painful to see three years of growth essentially wiped out in a single month.”
The 594,300 nationwide unemployment claims span a range of jobs, including rooftop solar installers, wind turbine technicians and factory workers who build electric vehicles, Energy Star appliances and high-efficiency air conditioning systems.
Around 70 percent of the newly unemployed people worked in energy-efficiency jobs, which have been hit particularly hard because the installation of new lighting and appliances often involves workers going into homes — a scary prospect during a pandemic.
Despite the nosedive, advocates say clean energy can play a key role in economic recovery efforts.
Before COVID-19, nearly 3.4 million Americans worked in clean energy — three times the workforce of the U.S. fossil fuel industry, according to Environmental Entrepreneurs.
The federal government, however, has offered little support for renewable energy. President Donald Trump, instead, has focused on helping the oil and gas industry, which has cut thousands of jobs as it struggles with plunging demand and prices.
Outside the White House, however, the pandemic has unleashed a torrent of proposals for how policymakers might use public dollars to boost employment in the clean energy sector and ensure the transition away from planet-warming fossil fuels.
The International Monetary
Fund released a paper last month calling on national governments to “support green, rather than brown, activities” as they craft recovery plans and make support for fossil fuel companies “conditional on making progress on climate.”
Renewable energy trade groups have asked Congress to provide additional relief by allowing solar and wind companies to take advantage of tax credits even if they can’t get tax equity financing, as lawmakers did in 2009 during the Great Recession.
Hundreds of nonprofits have signed on to “Five Principles of Just COVID-19 Relief and Stimulus,” prepared by groups including Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, the Sunrise Movement and the Service Employees International Union.
The document calls for public investments to “replace lead pipes, expand wind and solar power, build clean and affordable public transit, weatherize our buildings, build and repair public housing, manufacture more clean energy goods, restore our wetlands and forests, expand public services that support climate resilience, and support regenerative agriculture led by family farmers.”
“The response to one existential crisis must not fuel another,” the document reads.