The Green Brief: Europe’s skills gap – can we fix it?

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Driven by the combined energy and climate crises, the EU is becoming more and more aware of the need to switch to a green economy.

But even as Europe looks to ramp up the deployment of solar panels, heat pumps, and electric vehicles, it must face the fact that it simply does not have the people to get the job done.

“The best technology is only as good as the skilled workers who can install and operate it,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in a speech at Davos.

“And with a huge growth in new technologies, we will need a huge growth in skills and skilled workers in this sector,” she added.

2023 is the European Year of Skills and the EU’s new Green Deal Industrial Plan listed skills as its third pillar.

Together, the two will need to answer a question that was often asked of a TV icon of my childhood: “Can we fix it?”

The answer for Europe and its yawning skills gap may not be a simple “Yes, we can!” (although I would argue Bob the Builder would be an excellent ambassador for the European Year of Skills).

The green transition will require a little more than a motley crew and their cat. A leak of the Green Deal Industrial Plan, expected to be presented today, paints a dire picture of the current skills gap in Europe and predicts “fierce competition” for talent in the next decade.

“Demand for talent is acute. Labour shortages, as proxied by the vacancy rate, have doubled in sectors considered key for the green transition between 2015 and 2021 and green transition technical skills are in growing demand,” according to the draft, seen by EURACTIV.

The number of skilled workers required is monumental, cutting across many different sectors, including construction, sustainable transport, renewable energy production and the circular economy.

Batteries alone will require an estimated 800,000 workers to be trained, upskilled or reskilled by 2025, according to the European Commission, which has launched a battery academy to help tackle this. The solar industry will also require one million skilled workers by 2030, twice as many as today.

To help bridge this gap, the Commission puts forward several suggestions in its draft Green Deal Industrial Plan.

For starters, it encourages EU member states to include investments “in equipping the workforce with skills necessary for this industrial transition” in their revised recovery plans.

It also points to the role of the European Pact for Skills, which supports partnerships aimed at training workers for jobs in the green and digital economy. So far, the various companies and training providers involved have pledged to help upskill and reskill six million people. 

The Commission plan also envisions another partnership for “onshore renewable energy” to be established in February and a “heat pumps skills partnership” to be launched by the end of the year.

Following the example of the European Battery Alliance Academy, the European Commission will propose establishing Net-Zero Industry Academies “to roll out up-skilling and re-skilling programmes in strategic industries for the green transition, such as raw materials, hydrogen and solar technologies”.

Arguably, the EU should also tackle the gender gap in sectors key for the green transition as part of the push to increase skills. The draft plan points out that “in the renewables sector, women account only for one third of the workforce” and says “there is a clear opportunity for harnessing female talent”.

However, the rather clumsy attempt to crowbar women into the equation falls short of precise action or schemes that could boost women’s role in the transition.

It is yet to be seen whether the EU can turn its Year of Skills and Green Industrial Plan into a reality where it has the people (and women!) it needs to make the transition a reality.

If the EU gets this right, it could tackle redundancies from the waning fossil fuel industries, boost the EU job market and increase European manufacturing. If it gets it wrong, it risks falling behind on the energy transition, jeopardising its energy security and the EU’s position as a leader in tackling climate change.

Kira Taylor


Top stories

Renewables overtook gas in power generation for first time in 2022: study

Wind and solar power generated a record 22% of Europe’s electricity in 2022, overtaking fossil gas for the first time and outpacing coal again, according to a study by energy think tank Ember.

LEAK: EU biodiversity plan aims to ban bottom trawling in protected areas

EU countries will be required to reduce the harmful impacts of fishing on sensitive species and their habitats, under a draft EU biodiversity plan seen by EURACTIV.

Key French MEP pitches low-carbon 'weighting' for EU renewables target

France could back an EU-wide target of 45% for renewable energies if the objectives assigned to each member state are weighted according to the carbon intensity of their electricity mix, according to Pascal Canfin, the chairman of the European Parliament’s environment committee.


The Capitals – editor’s pick

PRAGUE. Czechia decreases Russian gas dependence over eight months. The country reduced its Russian gas dependency from 97% to 3-4% in eight months, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala announced on Tuesday. Read more.

LISBON. Europe’s biggest solar farm to open in Portugal. Iberdrola and Prosolia Energy obtained an environmental license to build the largest photovoltaic project in Europe in São Domingos near Santiago do Cacém with 1,200 megawatts (MW) of installed capacity, the companies announced on Tuesday. Read more.

BRATISLAVA. Slovak government presents first-ever climate law. The Climate Law, which for the first time officially enshrined in legislation the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, was presented by the Slovakian Environment Ministry on Monday. Read more.

BRUSSELS. Belgium to shut down second nuclear reactor. The Tihange 2 nuclear reactor – the second largest of the three Tihange reactors – will shut down permanently on Tuesday evening after 40 years of activity, making it the second nuclear reactor to shut down in the country. Read more.

THE HAGUE. The Netherlands ‘unquestionable solar energy leader’ of 2022: study. The Netherlands had the highest share of solar power in its electricity mix of any EU country last year, according to the European Electricity Review report by energy think tank EMBER. Read more.

ROME. Italy forges pact on gas, migrants with Libya. Italy has struck deals with Libya to increase gas production and control migratory flows following meetings with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and hydrocarbon giant Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi. Read more

PARIS. TotalEnergies formally prosecuted for ‘greenwashing’. The Nanterre public prosecution office in France started investigations against oil and gas giant TotalEnergies in December 2021 for allegedly misleading commercial practice, investigative media Mediapart revealed on Thursday. Read more.

WARSAW. Poland to likely make wind turbine installation even harder. Installing wind turbines, already tricky due to a law that has been in force since 2016, will be made even harder if an amendment the ruling PiS party is currently working on to trigger the release of frozen EU recovery funds is approved. Read more.


Must reads


News in brief

EU sues Bulgaria and Slovakia over renewables. The European Commission on Thursday (26 January) said it had decided to refer Bulgaria and Slovakia to the EU Court of Justice over their failure to transpose the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive into national legislation.

In the same announcement, the Commission sent a “reasoned opinion” to Spain urging Madrid to fully transport the EU’s renewable energy directive into national law. Madrid now has two months to comply after which the Commission may decide to refer the matter to the EU Court of Justice.

Ireland was also sued for failing to transpose the Water Framework Directive into national law, while Bulgaria, Ireland, Greece, Italy, Latvia and Portugal were sued for failing to prevent invasive alien species damaging European nature. More detail on the individual infringement procedures here. (Frédéric Simon | EURACTIV.com with Reuters).

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New centralised marine data portal launched. A new fully unified marine data service was launched on Wednesday (25 January) by the European Marine Observatory and Data Network (EMODnet) with the support of the European Commission. 

The brand-new service integrates all marine data into one portal which will become the go-to place for marine data users, assisting researchers, marine managers, policy-makers and many more to retrieve hundreds of data from a unified catalogue. 

The idea is to counter fragmentation and difficult accessibility to information, improving the accuracy of marine research while creating savings in cost and effort. To achieve this, more than 120 organisations involved in EMODnet have been working together for over a decade to aggregate observations and marine data from various sources, process them according to international standards and make them freely available.

A public webinar on the upgraded EMODnet services will take place online on 16 February. More information can be found here. (Valentina Romano | EURACTIV.com) 

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New green and digital transition plan for the chemicals industry. A joint plan for the chemical industry’s green transition drafted by the EU Commission together with representatives of the chemical industry, civil society and other stakeholders has been launched on Friday (27 January). 

Chemicals are present in about 95% of manufactured goods and are at the basis of Europe’s major value chains. In addition, the chemical industry is one of the largest CO2 emitters in the EU.

For this reason, the transition pathway assists in preparing a roadmap for investments in what is defined as “safe and sustainable chemicals”. The plan outlines a series of actions – more than 150 – that should be implemented within an agreed timeframe to achieve innovation collaboration, information gathering to support feedstock diversification, and improve clean energy supply thanks to electrification, hydrogen production or waste reuse. 

The goal is to achieve the green and digital transformation of the chemicals industry while ensuring its competitiveness. The pathway will be presented by the Commission on the occasion of the Chemical Industry High-Level Round Table on 1 February. The EU Commission’s transition pathway document can be downloaded here. (Valentina Romano | EURACTIV.com)

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EU countries sued for failing to prevent alien invasion. The European Commission on Thursday (26 January) referred six EU member states to the EU Court of Justice for failing to properly prevent and manage the spread of invasive alien species. 

Invasive alien species are plants and animals that are non-native in an ecosystem. They are introduced accidentally or deliberately due to human intervention into a natural environment where they are not normally found and constitute one of the major causes of biodiversity loss. They pose a major threat to native plants and animals in Europe, causing an estimated damage of €12 billion per year.

The six countries, namely Bulgaria, Ireland, Greece, Italy, Latvia and Portugal, did not establish, implement and communicate to the Commission an action plan to address the spread of these invasive alien species. 

In addition, Bulgaria and Greece have not yet established a surveillance system of invasive alien species of Union concern, or included it in their existing system, despite the 2018 deadline. Additionally, Greece does not have the structures in place to carry out the official controls necessary to prevent the intentional introduction of invasive alien species. 

Efforts by the six Member States to date have been unsatisfactory and insufficient according to the Commission, which is therefore referring them to the Court of Justice of the European Union. (Valentina Romano | EURACTIV.com)


Opinions


On our radar

FEBRUARY

  • 6 FEBRUARY. Trilogue negotiations: Revision of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED).  
  • 9-10 FEBRUARY. Special European Council. 
  • 14 FEBRUARY. Review of the CO2 emission standards for heavy-duty vehicles. 
  • 27-28 FEBRUARY. Informal meeting of energy, transport ministers. 
  • 27 FEBRUARY- 1 MARCH. World Ocean Summit, Lisbon. 

MARCH

  • MARCH. Revision of EU’s internal electricity market rules.
  • 2 AND 9 MARCH. Trilogue negotiations: Revision of the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED). 
  • 6 MARCH. Trilogue negotiations: Revision of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED). 
  • 8 MARCH. European critical raw materials act. 
  • 16 MARCH. Environment Council.  
  • 22 MARCH. Regulation on substantiating environmental claims. 
  • 22-24 MARCH. UN Water Conference, New York. 
  • 23-24 MARCH. European Council. 
  • 28 MARCH. Energy Council. 

APRIL

  • 18-19 APRIL. Informal meeting of environment ministers. 

MAY

  • 17 MAY. Proposal for EU hydrogen bank. 
  • 17 MAY. Measures to reduce the release of microplastics in the environment.
  • 31 MAY. Sustainable consumption of goods – promoting repair and reuse (the right to repair). 

JUNE

  • JUNE. European Parliament Plenary vote on the EU Nature Restoration Law. 
  • 19 JUNE. Energy Council. 
  • 20 JUNE. Environment Council. 
  • 21 JUNE. Greening freight package.
  • 29-30 JUNE. European Council.
  • 30 JUNE. Deadline for European Member States to update their revised National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs).

SECOND HALF OF 2023

  • Q4. Revision of REACH regulation. 
  • 26-27 OCTOBER. European Council.
  • 30 NOVEMBER-12 DECEMBER. UN Climate Change Conference (COP 28), Dubai. 
  • 14-15 DECEMBER. European Council.

[Edited by Frédéric Simon]

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