The second largest economy, China, dwarfs all other countries, and not just when it comes to investments in renewable energies. This boom is also reflected elsewhere.
According to a study, the number of jobs in the green electricity industry has grown significantly worldwide. Last year there were at least 16.2 million jobs in the renewable energy sector, 18 percent more than the year before, according to the Geneva-based UN Labor Organization (ILO) and the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena). Based in Abu Dhabi report.
China is at the top internationally
With a total of 7.4 million jobs, 45 percent of the jobs were in China alone. The world’s second-largest economy was reported to be at the top, ahead of the EU, in both the installation and production of renewable energy systems.
From 2010 to 2023, China increased its share of global solar capacity from 2.6 percent and wind energy capacity from 16 percent to around 43 percent each. Between 2014 and 2023, the country invested almost three times as much as the USA and twice as much as Europe in renewable energies – a total of almost 1,600 billion dollars (a good 1.4 trillion euros).
Germany is at the forefront
There were 1.8 million jobs in the renewable energy sector in the European Union. According to this report, Germany was first in the EU for wind power with almost 109,000 jobs. There were almost 155,000 jobs in the solar sector in Germany in 2023, a good twice as many as in the previous year.
According to the report, Germany has a 5.8 percent share of global solar capacity, behind China, the USA and Japan, and 6.8 percent of wind power, also behind China and the USA.
Solar before wind
In 2023, the most jobs worldwide were in the solar sector with 7.1 million, 4.6 million of them in China alone. The EU followed far behind with 720,000. The biofuels sector comprised 2.8 million jobs, hydropower 2.3 million and wind energy 1.5 million.
Last year, a record 473 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy systems were installed worldwide, as the agency had already reported. The global cumulative output at the end of 2023 was 3.87 terawatts.
Source: Stern
