Can climate change have an impact on Latin American and Caribbean jobs? Although they might seem as unrelated matters, the reality is that climate change has the potential to disrupt labor markets in the region both directly (through events such as floods, hurricanes, heat waves, and changes in precipitation patterns) and indirectly (through changes in regulations and policies meant to fight climate change, such as green taxes or emission reduction policies). The good news is that evidence suggests that transitioning to a zero-carbon economy will result in a net creation of jobs.
In Central America, global warming and variations in the local climate are pushing coffee farmers to change occupations, becoming cocoa farmers instead. In coastal areas where coral reefs are a key source of tourism revenue, bleaching threatens the livelihood of thousands. Sea level rise forces millions to relocate, melting of glaciers and loss of biodiversity can all take a dent on the tourism industry and its workers. These examples illustrate how slow onset climate change can affect the jobs of farmers, tourism industry workers and others, and force them to acquire new skills to adapt to a changing environment. Other slow onset changes, such as sea level rise, impact port businesses, such as Port of Manzanillo, México.
Workers ready for climate crises
Global warming also comes with increased frequency and severity of climate-related shocks. Higher temperatures mean more energy in the atmosphere, unleashed in more intense and stronger storms as illustrated recently by the infamous Irma and Harvey. Combined with sea level rise, these are creating taller storm surges and wider coastal floods. Precipitation patterns are changing, with both floods and droughts becoming more frequent in certain areas. Food crises can result from the direct disruption of crops and from the destruction of key infrastructure used to move food from farmers to consumers. Floods in Peru last March resulted in food scarcity due to roads closures in the northern coast. Illness brought by mosquitos and dirty water, such as zika, malaria and cholera, are spreading to new areas. Farmers, other professionals who work outdoors, and workers in the health and disaster response industry all need to be prepared.
Impact on policies
Climate change also impacts job markets indirectly, because governments enact greenhouse gas emission reduction policies. To stabilize climate change, global leaders agreed to transition to zero net emissions by the end of the century. To support this effort, the IDB Group aims at increasing the volume of climate-related financing to 30 percent of its operation by 2020.
Even in the absence of specific policies, an increased social awareness of the dangers of climate change could modify consumer habits towards cleaner goods and services, reducing the demand for products which are perceived to be damaging to the environment either in their end use or method of production. Such transition can be disruptive to existing carbon-intensive industries. Coal miners and cattle ranchers may need to reinvent themselves. On the other hand, a zero-carbon economy comes with formidable opportunities for creating new jobs. In fact, many studies found the transition to zero carbon will be a net job creator. In Mexico, millions are already working in so-called green jobs such as clean manufacture, organic agriculture, renewable energy and sustainable tourism.
The question for policymakers is how to make the transition smooth and increase its social and political acceptability (or as some would say, how to ensure a just transition) and the question for the IDB is how can it help countries from the LAC region in this effort.
*This blog post was co-authored with Verónica Alaimo and Melissa Barandiaran. The Spanish version was published in Factor Trabajo.
Photo: Copyright © Ecotlan – Flickr – (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
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