Adapting employment to fit a warming world

Global warming may be the topic on everyone’s lips, but the silence about the future of work in a warming world is deafening. The social flow-on from global warming will shake up the nature of work and the availability of employment for people in every country. In an era of uneven globalization, the impact of global warming is affecting every region, but it is not affecting all regions in the same way.

…Everywhere, the growth of small and medium-sized businesses poses a threat to changing the culture of energy use. In prosperous, climate-extreme countries like Canada, global warming threatens job loss in transport and energy-intensive industries, but opens the possibility of employment in new and technologically reorganized sectors


Global warming is changing what we produce and where within Canada we are able to produce it, as well as the technologies, training and worker representation we need. But within the public awakening to climate change, there is also an odd silence: Where is the debate about the future of work and employment? Since the need for employment is not going to disappear, Canada has a lot of questions to address.

Among these are: What industries will continue to provide employment for Canadians, in what numbers and in what regions? Which environment-focused industries will make new kinds of work available? How will ongoing industries change domestic production and division of labour, as well as corporate responsibility in their overseas operations? What skills will no longer be needed? What new training will have to be developed? How will the newly and systemically vulnerable access training and employment in the new labour markets?

How should universities and colleges rethink their programs and accessibility? What legislation will be necessary to assert worker citizenship in the transformed workplace? Will new forms of voice and representation emerge? Will our minimalist tradition of government planning for industries be rethought to allow for a “climate turn” in incubating new companies and market niches? Will our minimalist tradition in labour market planning be sufficient to prepare Canadians for decent jobs in the warming world?

Toronto Star