More than 8.1m people worldwide are now employed by the renewable energy industry, a 5% increase from last year, according to a report by the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena).
The report – Renewable Energy and Jobs: Annual Review 2016 – found that, while renewables jobs grew, in the wider energy sector jobs fell.
For example, in the US, renewable energy jobs increased 6%, while employment in oil and gas decreased 18%. In China, renewables employed 3.5m people, while oil and gas employed 2.6m.
The most renewables jobs in 2015 were in China, Brazil, USA, India, Japan and Germany, the report said.
The solar sector remains the largest renewable energy employer worldwide with 2.8m jobs, up from 2.5m previously.
Liquid biofuels was the second largest global employer with 1.7m workers, followed by wind power, which grew 5% to reach 1.1m global jobs.
Irena director-general Adnan Amin said: “The continued job growth in the renewable energy sector is significant because it stands in contrast to trends across the energy sector.
“This increase is being driven by declining renewable energy technology costs and enabling policy frameworks.
“We expect this trend to continue as the business case for renewables strengthens and as countries move to achieve their climate targets agreed in Paris.”
Image: the wind industry employed 1.1m workers globally last year (sxc)
