The Clean Energy Economy Is Already Booming
Without much attention from policymakers, or funding from the public trough, a low-carbon economy has already taken off in the United States. The jobs being created nationwide in clean energy are helping to bolster the nation's environmental sustainability and cut greenhouse gas emissions -- and expanding at a faster rate than the U.S. economy overall.
Research by The Pew Charitable Trusts, published in a new report titled "The Clean Energy Economy," found that:
- Between 1998 and 2007, jobs in clean energy grew at a faster rate than overall jobs.
- By 2007, more than 68,200 businesses across all 50 states and the District of Columbia accounted for about 770,000 jobs.
- Jobs in clean energy, both white-collar and blue-collar, grew at a rate of 9.1 percent, while total jobs grew at a rate of 3.7 percent.
- Clean tech has not been immune to the economic meltdown, but it's proving to be an especially resilient sector: Although venture capital investment in clean tech dropped by 48 percent in the first three months of 2009 (compared to the same period in 2008), investment across the board was down 61 percent during the same period.
- Employment in clean energy covers a broad swath of blue-collar and white-collar jobs, including plumbers, machinists, scientists, engineers, bankers and marketing consultants. Annual incomes ranging from around $21,000 to $111,000.
Imagine how clean energy jobs would have grown if the sector had received the enormous public policy support, government subsidies and private investment of, say, biotechnology? Despite the hype and money poured into biotech for the past twenty years, Pew reports that the sector employed fewer than 200,000 workers, around one tenth of one percent of total U.S. jobs in 2007. That's less than third of the number employed in clean tech.
As for fossil energy (including utilities, coal mining and oil and gas extraction), the century-old sector so often touted as an indispensable source of jobs for Americans: Pew found that this sector employed only around 1.27 million workers in 2007, or about 1 percent of total employment.
Just under 14 million were employed in manufacturing in 2007, but jobs in the sector shrank by 21 percent in the same period that clean energy was growing. "This long, steady decline accelerated during the past year as the recession hit, leaving workers in need of jobs—and states in need of new industries to serve as their economic engines," says the Pew report. "Today, a growing number of states are looking to identify and cultivate new industries and areas of economic growth to help them better compete in the 21st century global marketplace."
These numbers would seem to put the lie to claims by opponents of clean energy and climate legislation that cutting the carbon out of our economy will cripple the nation.
Far from it: Clean tech research, energy efficiency, greenhouse gas controls, environmentally friendly manufacturing, and renewable energy are demonstrably the long-term fixes to economic instability and decline. They're creating jobs here at home, generating sustainable revenues, cutting our greenhouse gas pollution, and positioning the U.S. to be relevant in the 21st century.
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