Standards and Skills: What’s needed to manage Critical Minerals for the Energy Transition? (UNECE RMYMG, OnePointFive)

We are halfway through the Energy Transition, with a trillion invested in the past few decades, and the next trillion expected in the next four years (RMI, 2024). While countries and corporations have set ambitious 2050 targets, we face a critical challenge: a lack of skilled workforce to deliver on these goals. Now is the time to invest in people, as they are essential to achieving collective climate objectives. The Arctic plays a pivotal role in the Energy Transition. With vast untapped Oil; Gas reserves, future exploration will be possible due to melting ice and permafrost. Renewable energy opportunities in the Arctic, especially in regions like Scandinavia, include geothermal and battery storage solutions, vital for capturing and transporting renewable energy. Additionally, critical minerals from the Arctic are crucial for scaling renewable energy. Simultaneously, LinkedIn’s 2024 Green Skills data highlights a widening gap between talent and demand. By 2050, jobs requiring green skills will double, but qualified workers remain in short supply. Green talent demand grew by 11.6% in 2023-2024, while the global supply of green skills only increased by 5.6% (LinkedIn, 2024). One major challenge is how to upskill the workforce to meet the demands of the Energy Transition, while ensuring a just and equitable transition. This includes not only energy generation but also securing critical minerals to support this transformation. In the Arctic, Norway is an example of growing demand for green talent, with an 11.6% increase in 2023-2024, surpassed only by Ireland and Saudi Arabia (LinkedIn Global Climate Talent Stocktake 2024). A revolution in green skills upskilling is required, whether it be through non-degree STEM education, an approach that ASME is pioneering through technical colleges in the US, or through adopting a skills-based hiring and talent development approach, as highlighted in OnePointFive’s latest 2024 report, “Forget the Sustainability Unicorn: How to Upskill your Climate Workforce”. The key outcomes of this discussion include: Understand that a skills-based hiring approach can help organizations avoid the “Sustainability Unicorn” Highlighting the importance of a Just Transition and adopting inter- and intra-generational workforce strategies to ensure long-lasting skills and knowledge Examining the relationship between responsible mining, critical minerals, and the Energy Transition, especially in the Arctic region, which will likely increase mining capacities to boost industrial resilience and reduce dependencies on third countries. Format and Flow Introductions Context of the global Energy Transition, and the current state on the Energy workforce of the Future Potential questions / discussion topics What are green skills? What can we learn from policy and corporate approaches to the Just Transition that can inform how we approach upskilling and the Energy Transition? What can we learn from countries like the US and the UK on their approach to upskilling and the Energy Transition, and how can this be applied to the Artic’s transformation? How can an intra- and inter-generational approach to upskilling support an accelerated, just and equitable transition?

Speakers:

• Matthias Muehlbauer, Co-Founder & COO, OnePointFive
• Bianca Derya Neumann, UNECE EGRM Resource Management Young Member Group
• Efrem Bryer, Senior Lead Manager, Public Policy and Economic Graph
• Maureen Gallagh, Muehlbauer Ambassador, European Federation of Geologists