SESSIONS

Co-convened in partnership with the UNEP Major Group for Children and Youth

On Green Jobs and the Green Economy

According to ILO, ‘green jobs are decent jobs in any economic sector (e.g., agriculture, industry, services, administration) which contribute to preserving, restoring and enhancing environmental quality’.

Since the start of the pandemic, hundreds of millions of people have lost their jobs as a result of global economic downturn. Building back better means creating jobs that take our economies one step further towards the 2030 Agenda and Paris Agreement, by accelerating and scaling up sustainable consumption and production while creating green and decent jobs for a just transition.

Youth have been particularly affected by the ongoing pandemic with over 200 million students currently enrolled in the higher education system and 71 million unemployed youth struggling to find a job. According to ILO, the transition to a green economy will add an estimated 60 million new jobs to the market by 2030, but these are conditional on the availability of relevant skills and training.

To create green growth, the businesses, governments, local communities, nonprofit organizations , must work with each other and higher education can act as a convener to encourage cross-sector collaboration. These partnerships hold the potential to produce the necessary financing, policies, market demand, training and education of the new and existing workforce as described in the UNEP Global Guidance for Education on Green Jobs.

On Green Entrepreneurship

Youth unemployment, underemployment, and decent jobs remain global challenges while we are witnessing rapid environmental degradation and climate change which pose serious threats to the future of our economies. According to ILO many of the jobs necessary to transition to a green economy do not exist and green entrepreneurs can contribute to create them. Green entrepreneurship is instrumental in responding to those challenges as key drivers for starting and sustaining a green economy by providing green products and services, introducing greener production techniques, boosting demand for green products and services, and creating green jobs.

The session will examine the following key questions:

• Why is the environment a driver for job creation?
• Why a green economy underpins a green future for young people?
• What is required in terms of changing macro-economic policies to encourage green jobs?
• What policies and actions are needed to address skills shortages for green jobs?
• What are the conditions required for creating and sustaining green jobs in a post covid world?
• What are the key challenges and opportunities of green entrepreneurship?
• How does green entrepreneurship address environmental and social challenges?

SPEAKERS

Asad Naqvi, Head of Secretariat, The Partnership for Action on Green Economy (PAGE); Moustapha Kemal Gueye, Coordinator Green Jobs Programme, ILO; Cassandra Delage, Founder & CEO, Plast’if; Ullas Samrat, Co-Founder, Triton Foodworks; Steven Shutong Jiang, Founder & CEO, Soarability