I’m working on a couple of green economy papers with one of my professors. I came across an article by Will Dubitsky, called Green jobs see huge growth globally: Why is Canada missing out? The article illuminates the lack of foresight in investing further in a traditional resource economy (mining, forestry, oil). Dubitsky argues that if the government reduced subsidies to the fossil fuel sector, the playing field would be more equitable for the clean energy technology sector (such as wind and solar). That move would also free up funding for the shift to a green economy and help spread jobs around the province rather than focusing only in specific resource centres.
Here’s a startling stat from the article in terms of job creation:
“A green shift offers 6 to 8 times more jobs for a given unit of investment when compared with government investments in the fossil fuel economy. To this effect, [Blue Green Canada] published a report indicating that $1.3 billion in subsidies for the oil and gas sector supports just 2,300 Canadian jobs, while the same amount invested in the green economy would support 18,000 to 20,000 jobs.”
So why in the world would the BC government be putting all their eggs into the liquid natural gas basket? Seems very short-sighted.