Employment and climate change

As Earth’s climate changes, some workers may leave adversely affected regions and migrate to other areas. Other workers will remain in place but may be forced to seek different employment as industries become less viable or are damaged by extreme weather events. In some cases, new economic opportunities will arise from mitigation and adaptation efforts.

Background

At present, human communities are more vulnerable to extreme weather events than to gradual change. Nonetheless, over time communities will be affected by global warming. As is usually the case, poorer communities will be more vulnerable than wealthier ones. Agriculture will be more affected than industry by gradual climate change, because industry is more adaptable. Extreme weather events, a likely product of global warming, will often negatively affect industries. Workers will often be forced to seek employment in new jobs when their old employers lose their viability. In some regions, workers may be forced to migrate from severely affected regions to those less affected, even when this means crossing national borders.

Extreme Weather Events and Employment

Global warming is expected to produce several impacts. Some, such as increasingly warmer weather or decreased precipitation, would be gradual. Most scientists agree, however, that global warming is also likely to produce more extreme weather, particularly in the tropics. The scenarios produced by the working group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicate that warmer weather will likely produce more and larger hurricanes and cyclones in the tropics, as well as more intense rainstorms or droughts in some areas. The occurrence of specific extreme events is difficult to predict on a long-term basis, so it will be difficult to plan for such events in any one specific area. Nonetheless, it is possible to indicate some regions that will be likely to experience more extreme weather events, such as Category 5 hurricanes (those with wind speeds over 241 kilometers per hour).

In the United States, for example, the IPCC scenarios indicate that Florida and the Gulf Coast will experience more hurricanes and, more important, hurricanes of greater magnitude. Worldwide, several cities, such as Miami in the United States and Mumbai in India, are situated along coasts vulnerable to hurricanes and cyclones; consequently, industries in these cities are vulnerable to the flooding and wind damage produced by large storms. It may be possible to adapt to stronger storms, especially in the industrial nations, but they will often produce short-term disruption that leads some businesses to close temporarily or eventually to move elsewhere. Even in industrialized countries, increased insurance costs may lead some businesses to move from coastal areas to inland locations. Businesses in less industrialized countries may simply close or move elsewhere rather than trying to rebuild when faced with major devastation. When manufacturing plants close because of extreme weather, skilled workers are forced to migrate elsewhere, although they may be able to find comparable jobs.

The increase in number and intensity of hurricanes will have a negative impact on low-wage employers in hurricane-prone areas in both industrial and less industrialized nations, as these businesses often do not have the capital to rebuild. Also, some people who are forced to relocate by severe weather events never return to their old homes. Hurricane Katrina, which hit New Orleans in 2005, left many people without jobs or homes. Some of the people who left New Orleans returned to the city, but many moved elsewhere, never to return.

Climate change and were likely to harm the tourist industry in several areas. The presence of more powerful storms in the tropics (a likely event in most climate scenarios) may deter some tourists from visiting beachfront resorts. Experts predicted that rising temperatures, the threat of powerful hurricanes, and high humidity would harm Florida's tourism, as people would instead visit Alaska, Wyoming, and Montana because their temperature increase is below average, and they are not threatened by hurricanes. Resorts would be faced with added costs of operation, such as insurance costs, that may force some to close. In mountain areas, higher temperatures that come from gradual warming have affected snowpack, making it difficult to sustain ski resorts. Some ski resorts in the North Carolina mountains have been being forced to close because there was not enough snow to sustain their business. Many resort workers were seasonal and may be able to find work elsewhere, but many were permanent residents who would have to relocate in order to find work.

Gradual Climate Change and Employment

Even when regions do not suffer from extreme weather, warming can lead to a gradual rise in sea level, flooding some coastal areas. In other cases, increased precipitation or snow melt will cause rivers to flood, affecting nearby communities. When combined with extreme events, this pattern can lead to substantial migration. Already, this is beginning to happen in Bangladesh. Farmers are losing productive land to water incursions and are crossing the border into the neighboring Indian province of Assam. These new immigrants often cause a reduction in wage levels, producing hostility between natives and the new arrivals. More extreme climate change scenarios indicate that some Pacific Islanders, such as those on Nauru, may be forced to evacuate their home islands before the end of the century when increases in sea level and more powerful storms make the low-lying islands uninhabitable. These migrants will have an impact on labor supplies wherever they settle. Inundations by seawater are already having an impact on the parishes south of New Orleans. Fishermen and fur trappers are being forced to move elsewhere in search of work as their livelihoods are being destroyed.

In some cases, it is the lack of water rather than too much water that leads to environmental migration. As desert regions in northern Africa become drier, herding people are finding it difficult to maintain their herds with decreased water supplies. In some areas, drought conditions are preventing farmers from growing crops, and some scenarios indicate increasing drought for parts of Africa, as well as the American Southwest. Some cities, such as Las Vegas, may have to face the possibility of water shortages under some climate change scenarios. In the case of Las Vegas, this situation would have a potentially negative impact on casino employment. As some lakes, such as Lake Chad in Africa, dry up, people who earned their livelihood from fishing in those lakes will be forced to move. In many cases, these people become desperate, as they move to cities or across borders looking for employment. In some cases, such as Darfur, this situation is already contributing to economic and political distress, as climate-based migration is being coupled to other, long-standing points of dispute. Although not as severe, the migration from Bangladesh into Assam is beginning to lead to problems, as some natives fear the potential changes occurring because of the new arrivals.

As countries try to find means to adapt to global warming and mitigate its impact, some industrial sectors will be affected in both negative and positive fashions. Various critics of the impact of on the atmosphere call for the curtailment of the use of oil and coal (both sources of CO₂) for energy and a concomitant decrease in production. If oil and coal production decreases, there will be fewer jobs in these industries, as well as those that supply equipment or expertise such as oil well drilling. On the other hand, energy demand is likely to remain high, so new industries will grow to provide energy or old industries such as the nuclear power industry will begin to grow once again.

Climate Change Fosters Employment Growth

Global warming does appear to be creating employment opportunities in some industries and regions. As annual temperatures rise in some temperate areas, such as northern Europe and Canada, new crops will become viable as growing seasons become longer. For the most part, this will mean simply an exchange of one sort of job for another for agricultural workers. As it becomes easier to navigate in the Arctic, companies are beginning to eye various opportunities to exploit natural resources there. The Arctic seabed is believed to hold several minerals, as well as having the potential for oil field development. Exploiting both of these resources will provide opportunities for skilled workers, and sailors will be needed to navigate the Northwest Passage from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean.

Context

As countries strive to adapt to global warming, new industries will develop, creating jobs, at least in the industrial countries. Solar panel and wind turbine fabrication and construction are two new industries that are beginning to take shape in several countries as people turn to renewable energy sources. In some countries, infrastructure projects, such as the construction of higher seawalls in the Netherlands, are already under way. Unfortunately, poorer countries will share less in this sort of job creation because of lack of capital. People in less industrialized nations will simply be forced off the land into the cities, where few jobs exist. Even so, there will be some potential for low-wage jobs in cleaning up storm damage in all regions.

These sorts of impacts of global warming appear to be quite straightforward, yet as the IPCC panel of scientists indicates, the reality is more complex. People may also move from one area to another in search of higher wages or better working conditions. Climate change plays a role in their decision, but so do other factors, making it difficult to assign an impact to climate change alone.

Predicting the impact of climate change on global employment patterns will continue to be of interest but will be exceedingly difficult to do. There are no neat trade-offs from one industry to another that can be assigned to climate change. Because people move for a variety of reasons, it is hard to assign values to the impact of climate change on population movement.

It is apparent that people in developing countries will bear a large share of the employment (and other) costs of climate change. The economies of industrial nations are more adaptable, but they too will face some employment dislocations by the end of the twenty-first century. As always, the more extreme climate change scenarios (those predicting average global warming of 5° to 7° Celsius) will lead to larger impacts on the world economies, including employment patterns.

Key Concepts

• environmental refugees: people forced to move because of climate change
• extreme weather events: major, potentially damaging weather occurrences, such as hurricanes, snowstorms, or floods
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC): a group of scientists charged by the United Nations to develop various scenarios examining the impact of climate change
• migration: the movement of people from place to place
• scenario: outline of the impact of climate change under certain conditions

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