Green Jobs, Is It Important?
The latest news shows that Boris Johnson plans a new 250,000 green job in UK, is it important?
During this pandemic, almost everyone lost their jobs due to mobility restrictions and also the reduction in market interest. Many countries start to plan on how to help the citizen to get a job again. As one of the most impactful country, United Kingdom (UK), make a significant movement. Their prime minister, Boris Johnson, announced that there will be a new 250,000 jobs opportunity in Green Jobs.
Anyway, what is Green Jobs? Have you already know the meaning?
In a short word, it is environmental jobs that have a purpose to protect and promote the environment and the health of the earth. For example, a job in a renewable or decarbonization industry. This type of job will support the Paris Agreement in 2016 that wants to limit the temperature increase of 2 °C.
Then, what are the problems? Doesn’t it sound good for every sector?
In general, it will give a good impact, especially to reduce the effect of global warming. Also, the ambition from the prime minister of UK is to accelerate the schedule of ending the conventional car era in 2030 which it is 10 years faster than the initial schedule. In addition, this policy will help the country to achieve the Net Zero Emissions by 2050 (NZE2050) goals.
For people that the job doesn’t affect by the pandemic, it will sound great and they will 100% support it. At the very beginning, I didn’t have any issue with this news. However, after I do some study and research, I found out that there are a lot of people that being laid off from their job. They come from various industry and the number is much bigger than the Green Job plan that Boris Johnson said. Therefore, UK people start to protest the prime minister and ask to focus on reducing the jobless person first. In addition, the financial stimulus that Boris Johnson plan is really big and it could be more useful to reduce the jobless person by also provide the non-Green Jobs opportunity. A lot of pros and contra which make me interested to discuss it deeper.
What is my opinion?
I think that the actual plan is really great to reduce the global warming effect as the condition is keeping worsen over time. However, from BBC News source, I found out that in September, the number of jobless people in the UK touch 1.62 million people. So, even if the plan is well executed, there still a lot of people that need to help out. With the source from The Guardians, I got information that there are about £2bn is being prepared by the government as the financial stimulus to help this plan.
From these facts, I think that making an ambitious plan to achieve a greener future is really important. Even though I didn’t really know the condition in UK, but I think that big financial stimulus could relocate into other more useful plans. The main goals should be how to help people affected by the pandemic. My opinion is to make a new plan that mixing the financial stimulus target. Not only for the Green Jobs opening but also this stimulus needs to be used to help jobless people. Having a focus on opening a job that give a positive impact to the environment is good, but sacrificing people affected by the pandemic is a big mistake from a very well-developed country, such as United Kingdom.
So, what do you think? Is it good or bad? Leave your opinion in the comment section.
Sources:
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/17/boris-johnson-announces-10-point-green-plan-with-250000-jobs
[2] https://www.iberdrola.com/environment/what-are-green-jobs
[3] https://www.bbc.com/news/business-52660591
