The employment impact of climate change adaptation

This publication highlights the fact that around one third of jobs in the G20 countries rely directly on the effective management and sustainability of a healthy environment. Climate change and other forms of environmental degradation have already caused net negative impacts on jobs and work productivity, and these impacts are expected to become more pronounced in the coming decades.

Quantitative simulations indicate that climate change mitigation has the potential to keep future adaptation costs down and bring net employment benefits through, inter alia, a substantial reallocation of labour. However, whatever mitigation efforts are undertaken, the impacts of climate change are already making themselves felt and they are not expected to diminish in the near future. Thus, adaptation measures are called for and this document emphasises that these can also lead to employment creation.