“We are determined to fix the youth unemployment crisis and restore opportunity across the country,” explained Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero Miatta Fahnbulleh, after her appearance on BBC Breakfast on Monday. She had been invited to the show to talk about the plight of North Sea oil and gas, and in particular to explain how the Government was going to navigate between its goal of ‘pragmatism’ versus the views of her predecessor, Ed Miliband, who before returning to government called the plans to develop Rosebank and Jackdaw fields “climate vandalism”. Perhaps to distract from the controversy and the Government’s lack of clarity, Fahnbulleh, on the show and then on X, talked past the sale. “We’re creating 400,000 extra clean energy jobs by 2030 and working with companies like @nationalgriduk to help young people seize these opportunities,” she tweeted.
The figure of “400,000” has been Labour’s shiny bauble of distraction for a long time. But the promise of green jobs and green opportunities in general have for just as long belied the reality of deindustrialisation, economic torpor and what some have called the ‘enshittification’ of the ‘Yookay’. The tactic is obvious: most people aren’t particularly moved by abstract climate goals such as emissions-reduction targets. But everyone wants young people to have good jobs to look forward to. You might think climate policies are BS, but are you going to argue against jobs for young people? Since Fahnbulleh is new to her position, perhaps she
Discussion
Comments
This week across the site:
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to the Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
The word ‘green’ now means to me ‘a total waste of hope and money’
A very lengthy article but still no one can tell me what these jobs will actually be. Windmill polishing? Solar panel cleaning?
I ask in vain because no one has ever said what these 400,000 people will be doing.
The windmills and magic sunbeam converters are manufactured abroad. The ‘farms’ where herds of them are to be found are mainly owned by foreign companies. The £multibillion parallel network required to dispense the electricity they generate will be paid for through energy bills and taxes by people in existing jobs.
The Bizarro world featured in sixties comics (part of the Superman series) has finally become reality.
I’m beginning to suspect that it’s all bo**ocks
Milton Friedman, 1980 lecture said: “Public discourse treats ‘creating jobs’ as a goal, but that is not the objective. One can create any number of jobs by having people dig holes and fill them in again. Jobs are a price and we have to work to live… the appropriate national objective is to have the fewest possible jobs that still produce the goods and services people want, ie, the most productive ones.”
In economics: the benefit of economic activity is the output/consumption it enables; the jobs required are a cost – including opportunity cost.
Treating job creation itself as the goal confuses means with ends and can lead to inefficient or make-work policies. (Green Deal) But then that’s Socialism – keep the Proles in harness whatever the cost.
So-called green jobs would increase the amount of labour and cost to try to produce the same output and consumption we already enjoy with non-green jobs and non-green means. In addition there are sunk costs in the non-green activities, costs which again must be incurred at a higher rate to create the green activities.
Overall the “Green Deal” makes us poorer as is evident just by looking at electricity bills,… Read more »
There are 2 simple questions any half-awake interviewer could ask these people:
The UK ratio used to be 3 real jobs for every ‘green’ job but we are probably running low on real jobs to destroy. We can admire the Germans for the amount of jobs they are destroying. The largest manufacturing plant for Mercedes is now in Hungary not Stuttgart.
And a third. At what cost?
And how many of these actually generate positive cash flow and aren’t just dependant on government subsidies?
Answers: None : Lots
PS: Mad Ed looked almost human back in 2009!
But just as deranged.
As maniacal as any of Batman’s foes.
It’s quite simple to create Green jobs. You simply label a previously existing job as ‘Green’. Like say a bin lorry operator is now called a Green recycling operative.
We just have to gloss over the fact that for each new Green job we gain we lose at least one previously existing job.
I have quite regular conversations with people* in new Green jobs:
Hello, my name is ___ and I’m the energy adviser for your postcode area. Can I ask you one question: Do you own your house?
Which postcode area?
Your postcode area.
(click).
*Edit: Yes, I’m quite sure it’s a recording/voice response system.
I have racked my brains to come up with some long term (dare I say, sustainable) “new green jobs” and the only twu I can come up with are solar panel polishers and corpse collectors around on-shore wind farms.
A great compilation of almost 20 years-worth of failed “green jobs” prognostications. These never materialising green jobs mirror the never materialising climate catastrophes of Andrew Simms et al (Al Gore!).
Every so-called green job is an opportunity cost loss to the economy because there is no need to save CO2 emissions, especially not unilaterally as the UK is attempting. Every wind turbine and solar panel is a waste of time, money and effort as they form a redundant parallel energy infrastructure to the now sadly degraded original energy infrastructure of conventional power stations which is needed to keep the lights on when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine.
Happy days