Beyond Efficiency: Labor-Market Resilience in an Age of AI and Net Zero

As governments worldwide increase their commitments to tackling climate change, the number of low-carbon jobs is expected to grow rapidly.Here we provide evidence on the characteristics of low-carbon jobs in the US using comprehensive online job postings data between 2010-2019.By accurately identifying low-carbon jobs and comparing them to similar jobs in the same occupational group, we show that low-carbon jobs differ from high-carbon or generic jobs in a number of important ways.Low-carbon jobs have higher skill requirements across a broad range of skills, especially technical ones.However, the wage premium for low-carbon jobs has declined over time and the geographic overlap between low-and high-carbon jobs is limited.Overall, our findings suggest there will be labour reallocation costs as workers transition into low-carbon activities.This suggests a role for targeted public investments in re-skilling to minimise transitional costs and ensure a workforce fit to deliver a rapid transition. 1 Reaching climate neutrality by mid-century requires a deep transformation of all economic sectors [40].In parallel with ongoing technological trends in digitization and Artificial Intelligence [8, 1], the low-carbon transition reshapes labour markets, by reallocating workers towards low-carbon activities whilst skills demanded by high-carbon activities may be lost with job displacement.The political imperative of delivering jobs [28] and supporting a "just transition" that addresses the needs of workers and communities of high-carbon industries is a key priority to enhance the political acceptability of climate action [45].Yet understanding the characteristics of and skills required in low-carbon jobs vis-à-vis high-carbon or generic jobs remains a challenge, due to the fundamental difficulties in accurately identifying low-carbon jobs with precision.High-carbon jobs linked to fossil fuels extraction and production are easily identified, but conceptual issues and data limitations make it significantly more difficult to define the jobs that will benefit from ambitious climate policies.