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This post was co-written with Michael Davidson and first appeared on It’s Getting Hot in Here.

Just in case our 5 years of swarming state capitals decked out in green hard hats, running campaigns calling for more jobs in clean energy, and vowing to only vote for candidates who support renewable energy companies hasn’t made it clear — youth really want more green jobs.

While young people have been some of the biggest advocates for green jobs, no one has really tried to answer the question of whether green jobs will be youth jobs? Will more green jobs mean more jobs for youth, or will young people miss out on the very green jobs we’ve worked so hard to create?

So far, the answer has been “we don’t know.” That’s because, despite all of the green jobs studies that have been done, none of them has really looked at the different kinds of people who actually get green jobs (one exception is for income and education level). This is especially true across different races, ethnicities, genders, and, yeah, ages. So, we set out to change that, writing the first study we know of to look at youth access to green jobs, and also the first written by youth.

Building on Kyle’s earlier research on green jobs demographics, we looked at the industries where the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (which finally has the resources to take green jobs seriously) says the most green jobs companies are, and compared that to data on the industries most young people work in. You can see the full results in our paper, but they’re not great:

Basically, industries with the most green jobs, like construction (doing energy efficient building retrofits, for example), don’t employ young people who have jobs (here BLS defines youth as ages 18-24). And the industries that do employ a lot of young people, like retail (and every young person’s favorite job, food service!), have some of the lowest rates of green jobs companies, less than a percent of all green jobs firms. Considering that youth unemployment is even higher than average unemployment, that’s pretty crappy news for all those youth looking to make a difference through a steady job.

To be fair, the data we have only tells us how many green jobs companies there are, not how many actual jobs there are (BLS is surveying total numbers of jobs now, hoping to finish by 2012), and the numbers probably look a little better for youth aged 25-29.

Does that mean more green jobs won’t create jobs for youth? No.

For one thing, tons of studies suggest that investments and policies that support renewable energy, energy efficiency, and solutions to climate change create more jobs overall, compared to equivalent support for fossil fuels and fossil fuel jobs. Just having more jobs total should mean at least some extra jobs for youth, even if most of those green jobs go to older workers. Youth are also not heavily employed in fossil fuel and mining sectors, meaning we will be less hurt by these shifts in investments.

For another, just having more older workers with green jobs (when they used to be unemployed) will create some jobs for youth. That’s because people who are getting paid, when they used to be out of work, also start spending money when they couldn’t before. And they spend that money at places like clothing stores and restaurants — places that employ a lot of young people — and those places start hiring more workers as their business picks up (these are called either indirect or induced jobs). These might not be green jobs directly, and they may not pay the kinds of wages youth need to prosper, but they’re at least an improvement over no job.

But lastly, and most importantly, pushing for green jobs today will mean more green jobs tomorrow. Even if our generation isn’t claiming the majority of green jobs today, you can bet we will soon, as we become the biggest generation in the workforce, becomes innovators helping to solve our energy and climate crises, and move into the age range with the most green employment.

Even putting aside other benefits, like fighting climate change and helping other people find decent work, that’s reason enough for youth to fight for more green jobs.

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Michael Davidson was a SustainUS youth delegate to the Cancun climate negotiations in December 2010. He is the China Climate Fellow at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, DC, where he examines the dynamic U.S.-China energy and environment relationship and supports NRDC’s Earth Summit 2012 campaign. Previously, he was a Fulbright Fellow in Beijing and holds degrees in Physics and Japanese Studies from Case Western Reserve University.

The study — “Green Jobs for Youth: A Preliminary Analysis of Youth in the Green Economy” — is our own work and does not necessarily reflect the opinions or endorsements of the places we work for.

This post was written by Michael Davidson. It originally appeared on It’s Getting Hot in Here.

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One year from this week, government leaders, civil society members and representatives of the business community will meet in Rio de Janeiro to discuss the future of the planet. The Earth Summit (also called Rio+20 after the first such global event in 1992) can help lead to a more prosperous world that utilizes natural resources more efficiently and responds to the needs of the most impacted communities of environmental degradation. But only if youth help write the story, and here’s why.

Rio 1992 was a watershed moment for the global environmental conscience. Treaties were signed, commissions created, and action plans drafted. Yet one of the most memorable speeches from the two-week conference was by a 12-year old girl (here’s what she’s doing now).

Now, a generation later, my generation is faced with two seemingly insurmountable challenges: the world is changing at a rate never before seen, and the current governance structures are insufficient to meet even the environmental problems of the 1970s.

Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Trustee and former United Nations Development Programme head Gus Speth writes of his “generation of great talkers” in Global Environmental Challenges: “For the most part, we have analyzed, debated, discussed, and negotiated these issues endlessly…On action, however, we have fallen far short…The threatening global trends highlighted a quarter-century ago continue to this day.”

That’s why we’re looking for something different this time around. NRDC is inaugurating our Race to Rio campaign with an initial set of Earth Summit deliverables we would like to see heads of state, business executives and civil society leaders agree to (see more details and climate/energy asks). The criteria are simple, they must be specific and short-term; involve commitments to work together; and have robust monitoring and reporting provisions.

Actions and accountability

Fortunately, as I reported back from the last preparatory meeting, civil society is already focusing on the dual challenges of actions and accountability. This was reflected in submissions (pdf) to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability as well as recent calls for greater ambition.

We as civil society must channel this energy, however, neither wasting precious time pointing fingers at every unfulfilled promise of the last forty years nor demanding that our leaders commit to lofty ideals long after they will be out of office. NRDC President Frances Beinecke thinks we can learn from the Clinton Global Initiative, which has a unique track record for generating real actions on the ground.

As we contemplate what needs to be done in the next five to ten years, though, be sure: from now until Rio 2012 is the most important year. I uncovered a public service announcement from the run up to Rio 1992 calling on every American to send a telegram to the White House asking the U.S. to lead. We need the same passion and pragmatism guiding us toward Rio in 2012.

An open challenge to youth

Our new abilities to tear down planetary boundaries are only surpassed by our tools to tear down cultural and geographic boundaries.

It’s interesting to look at what’s happened in my generation – the generation of billions: we’ve added 1.3 billion new people to the planet (a billion in our cities), two billion Internet users, five billion mobile phone subscriptions, and brought billions out of the worst kind of poverty.

We know that a successful Earth Summit must engage all strata of society, and thankfully we are beyond telegrams and faxes. But, how do we bring the myriad new media tools to bear on the problem of accountability and actions? This is an open challenge for youth to help shape the debate using a new, more effective language. This week, we raise awareness through posts on #earthsummit and #rioplus20, but we need to think beyond.

Some examples already exist. Earth Day Network’s Billion Acts of Green campaign encourages all of us to share our local actions toward sustainability. The European Environmental Agency’s iEnviroWatch app gives local environmental conditions and wants to invite users to submit content. Various youth rapid response networks at UN climate negotiations provide instant accountability to constituents back home.

And youth from Canada to the UK are coming up with creative ways to engage.

These and many more need to be scaled up by Rio next year, because it is obvious to UN leaders that the current way of doing things will not survive another twenty years. Our world cannot wait for a Rio+40 to curb climate change, repopulate the oceans and restore lost forests.

We need to blaze a path forward at the same time we ask our leaders to lead.

RIO+20 Earth Summit: Potential Deliverables (pdf)

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Michael Davidson was a SustainUS youth delegate to the Cancun climate negotiations in December 2010. He is the China Climate Fellow at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, DC, where he examines the dynamic U.S.-China energy and environment relationship and supports NRDC’s Earth Summit 2012 campaign. Previously, he was a Fulbright Fellow in Beijing and holds degrees in Physics and Japanese Studies from Case Western Reserve University.