Renewable energy to create jobs, experts say

Renewable energy to create jobs, experts say(By Veronika Oleksyn via Forbes.com)VIENNA -- More investment in renewable energy would create much-needed jobs

at a time when the world is struggling with rising unemployment, experts

said Monday.Kandeh K. Yumkella, director-general of the U.N. Industrial Development

Organization and Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the U.N.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, spoke at the start of a

conference about energy issues in the context of the current global

economic crisis."On a global scale, 2.3 million people have found jobs in the renewable

energy sector over the past few years even though only about 2 percent of

worldwide primary energy flows from this sector," Yumkella said. "So you

can imagine with more investments in renewable energy how much more jobs we

can create."Pachauri, whose team shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore, said

the global economy needed to be restructured in such a way that problems of

the past could be avoided going forwarded."And what better way than to ensure that you bring about higher energy

efficiency, which will generate a totally new sector of employment?" he

said. "What better way than to move toward greater use of renewable energy,

which will also generate a lot of jobs and give you a sustainable solution

for the future?"Pachauri is also the director-general of the India-based TERI, The Energy

and Resources Institute.In other comments, both Yumkella and Pachauri stressed that 1.6 billion

people around the world still do not have access to electricity and that

reversing this phenomenon should be a key priority for policy makers."In today's 21st century, there must be climate justice but also energy

justice so that we all - all of us - can enjoy the prosperities of

globalization," said Yumkella, a former minister of trade, industry and

state enterprises in his native Sierra Leone.The three-day conference organized by UNIDO, the Austrian Development

Cooperation, the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and

the Global Forum on Sustainable Energy, is expected to draw some 500

experts, government officials and civil society representatives.For the very latest jobs in renewable energy from around the world please

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