Countries in the Asia-Pacific region could add US$47 trillion to the global economy by 2070 and create 180 million jobs by 2050 if they seize opportunities from decarbonisation, with China and India set to benefit the most, according to Deloitte.
Minimising disruption to climate-reliant jobs through investment in climate adaptation and accelerating the transition to net-zero will be critical for economies in the region, particularly China and India, which have the highest proportion of workers employed in industries most vulnerable to climate change, according to a Deloitte report released on Wednesday.
Of China's total workforce, 48 per cent are employed in industries that are most vulnerable to the physical impact of climate damage and the economic transition to net-zero, such as agriculture, conventional energy, manufacturing, transport and construction. India had 43 per cent of its workforce in vulnerable industries, on par with the average in Asia-Pacific, according to the Deloitte job vulnerability index included in the report.
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China has the highest proportion of the workforce in vulnerable industries in Asia-Pacific, but with education reforms and talent development plans already starting to take shape, the opportunity to shift to green skills is significant, Pradeep Philip, head of Deloitte Access Economics in Australia, said in an interview.
"An economy like China has the most to lose [from climate change] because of its size and industrial structure," Philip said. "If [China] tackles climate change, it has the most to gain.
"We would expect countries like China and India to be the significant winners in the jobs dividend of that 180 million [jobs]. It's in every country's interests to start to decarbonise and meet the net-zero target."
The Asia-Pacific region's high share of emissions-intensive industries means millions of workers and their communities depend on activities that will need to be replaced by zero-emission alternatives, according to the report. Deloitte estimates that 80 per cent of the skills needed for the zero-emissions transition in the short-to-medium term already exist in today's workforce.
Moreover, almost two-thirds of the world's renewable energy jobs are in Asia, with China alone accounting for 42 per cent of the global total in 2021, the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) said last September. Renewable energy employment reached 12.7 million in 2021 worldwide, a jump of 700,000 new jobs, the agency said.