Green Transition Solutions: An Exploration of Workforce Skills Necessary for the Energy Transition

This COP29 panel discussion about skills needed for the energy transition featured moderator Maureen Gallagher, Global Ambassador for the European Federation of Geologists, David Govoni, President of the European Federation of Geologists, Bianca Derya Neumann, Chair of the UNECE Resource Management Young Member Group, Matthias Muehlbauer, Co-Founder and COO of OnePointFive, a climate advisory and climate training company, and second-year Harvard Business School student Ian Naccarella.

"The choices are immense in this space," Muehlbauer said, but there's a "propagating green skills gap."

"When we think about the energy transition and critical minerals being a component of that, we talk a lot about the finance levers, the policy levers, the technology or solutions levers, but when we're talking about implementation, a lot of this work will actually be done by people," he said.

"Thinking about the skills component really brings in the human capital and people part of this. Now how can you position yourself if you're looking to get involved in climate? Well, there are about 10 skills that are really important for sustainability management...and they're bucketed into three distinct areas: broad climate fluency, specialized business skills applied to sustainability, and technical skills."

The opportunity is to lean into skills development programs that are separate from academia and keep up with the pace of the skills required, Muehlbauer said.

"Being able to enhance education with focusing on targeted skills not only benefits our academic pipelines, but also people that have finished academia and are not going to re-enter universities."

Neumann said a combination of university education or apprenticeships and lifelong learning programs is also a good approach for many.