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Event

What next for workers?

Transition Economics’ Mika Minio-Paluello is speaking at a webinar organised by CLASS (Centre for Labour and Social Studies) on Thursday 16 July.

Here are her slides.

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Report

TUC: Can an infrastructure stimulus replace UK jobs wiped out by COVID19 crisis?

An analysis of infrastructure investment options to build back better

New research carried out for the TUC by Transition Economics reveals that fast tracking spending on projects such as broadband, green technology, transport and housing could deliver a 1.24 million jobs boost over the next two years.

Read more: TUC’s Rebuilding after recession: a plan for jobs

Our full analysis:

Our analysis recommends 19 infrastructure projects totalling £85 billion public investment, based on investment and employment modelling and ten World Bank-derived criteria including long-term job creation, resilience and sustainability. 

Broken down by sector, projected job creation (direct and supply chain) is as follows:

  • 735 thousand jobs in housing construction and energy efficiency retrofits
  • 289 thousand jobs in transport upgrades
  • 98 thousand jobs in energy, waste, and manufacturing infrastructure upgrades
  • 81 thousand jobs in land, forestry, and agriculture improvements
  • 42 thousand jobs in broadband upgrades

These jobs benefit sectors and demographics hit hardest by the COVID19 emergency. Over 75% of the jobs would be created in sectors that traditionally employ non-graduate workers.

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Work in progress

Our analysis for Scottish TUC shows potential for a £13bn green stimulus package to create 150,000 jobs

May 31st 2020 press release by Scottish Trade Union Congress

Provisional analysis of clean infrastructure projects has outlined the massive benefits of a government funded green stimulus for Scotland, with a £13 billion investment creating almost 150,000 jobs and re-absorbing workers who have lost employment due to the Covid 19 crisis.

The STUC has today published provisional research by Transition Economics into the potential for clean jobs creation in the context of the COVID 19 crisis. The analysis draws lessons from the 2008 Great Recession – including the need to prioritise shovel-ready projects.

Upwards of 50,000 jobs could be created in building retrofit, 40,000 in transport and 20,000 in manufacturing and offshore wind infrastructure. The longer-term supply chain benefits in Scotland would be enormous.

The research is released following the announcement of the paring back of the Job Retention Scheme, threatening a massive increase in redundancies across the economy, ongoing concerns about the future of the North Sea, and while low-carbon supply chain decisions such as the future of the Bi-Fab renewables facility hang in the balance.

In its submission to the Scottish Government’s Advisory Group on Economic Recovery submitted today, the STUC argues for a wide range of measures including “Funding emergency infrastructure stimulus to support Scotland’s economic recovery, including a comprehensive housing programme … and the creation of a national construction and infrastructure company to drive forward change and support high quality employment.” It also calls for investment to support national and municipally owned public transport.

STUC General Secretary Designate Roz Foyer said:

“The need for major infrastructure stimulus becomes more urgent by the day. This research we are publishing is drawn from a wider report on the potential for creating green infrastructure jobs which will be published later in the year. But given the crisis we face there is no time to be lost. We thank the authors Mika Minio-Paluello and Anna Markova for bringing forward these interim conclusions.

“Their analysis shows just that almost 150,000 good quality jobs could be created at the same time as making a real impact on emissions and strengthening Scotland’s renewables supply chain.

“We know that it will still be some time until Scottish industry will emerge from lock-down, so these are the weeks in which we should be planning, and planning big.

“The measures outlined in this report sit along a range of other necessary investments including in key services such as social care. Clearly the level of stimulus we are proposing will require inter-governmental co-operation, but now is the time for those discussions to begin in earnest.”

For further details contact: Dave Moxham 07891 026879

Notes:

Download Provisional Report

The report attached scores potential projects against a range of criteria:

Shovel Readiness; direct Job Creation/Protection; Focus on held-back regions; Builds domestic low-carbon technology & manufacturing; Supports climate transition in hard-to-decarbonise sectors; Contribution to resilience to climate change; Improves economic productivity; Develops domestic skills base; Resilient to re-instated lockdown; Supports health, public services and social fabric

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Report

The UK North Sea as a Global Experiment in Resource Extraction

This report by Juan Carlos Boué was published by ScotE3 with support from PCS and Platform, and edited by Transition Economics’s Mika Minio-Paluello.

Juan Carlos Boué’s report (pdf download) analyses the UK’s North Sea oil tax regime, which has handed super-profits to international oil companies while the taxpayer now foots the bill for decommissioning.

Boué argues that, since the 1970s, these tax arrangements have been “at the forefront of the process of redefinition of the economic frontiers of the State”. These “neoliberal governance structures”, designed in the UK, were exported across the world in the 1980s and 1990s, along with privatisation and “market liberalisation”. The global spread of the UK governance model did produce oil production gains, Boué concludes, “but also destabilised many key petroleum producers, whose governments found themselves starved of fiscal income”.

Boué brings the story right up to date, showing how, as North Sea oil production declines, the government has pushed the burden of decommissioning costs on to the public purse, while the oil companies eke out every last drop of oil, and of profit, from their operations.

Download report: https://tinyurl.com/udpqncd

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Presentation

How can public ownership in Offshore Wind deliver good jobs for the climate transition?

Watch Anna’s video presentation at STUC energy conference in Glasgow, 20 November 2019.

Categories
Report

Who Owns the Wind, Owns the Future

Offshore wind is going to play a central role in the UK’s energy and industrial future in the 21st century. The UK has one of the richest offshore wind resources in the world. Turbine installation will continue apace, heading for 30, 40 or 50 GW in the next two decades.

Research carried out by Transition Economics for Labour Energy Forum reveals the first breakdown of the UK’s offshore wind by country and ownership status:

Out of 10.4 GW of offshore wind (operating and under construction)

  • 92.7% is owned by non-UK entities
  • 7.3% is owned by UK entities (excl GIB)
  • 51.2% of UK offshore wind is publicly-owned
  • 0.07% is owned by UK public entities

“Who Owns the Wind, Owns the Future” lays out how public ownership of the UK’s offshore wind can

  • Speed up deployment of offshore wind
  • Help deliver a Just Transition for workers and communities
  • Capture the value offshore wind creates for the British public, including residents, firms and workers
  • Revitalise UK industry and create institutions to drive industrial strategy
  • Minimise costs to energy users, including households and industry

21st century public ownership of wind means a diversity of institutional forms, accountable to local residents, able to support and shape local economies, deliver energy justice and accelerate the transition.

We recommend that devolved governments, councils and central government co-operate to set up the most appropriate entities to invest into, develop, build and/or maintain offshore wind farms.