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You are here: Home / Announcements / Climate expert to Korean TV audience: How can the U.S. give energy sector workers “a just transition” in moving from coal to renewable energy?

Climate expert to Korean TV audience: How can the U.S. give energy sector workers “a just transition” in moving from coal to renewable energy?

For Immediate Release
July 5, 2022

Dr. John Byrne told a Korean television audience that as the renewable energy markets have grown in the United States, coal markets have declined. This means disappearing jobs for coal workers and rapidly increasing jobs in renewable energy industries. He said creative ways are in the works to make it a “just and sustainable transition” from coal to renewable energy.

During the interview, Byrne said, “I know the Biden administration has been investigating the case of actually including the coal mine workers and others that are in these extractive industry areas in a process of both making the mines secure and safe and being a host for some of the new technologies. Rather than moving the coal worker to some sort of renewable energy plant, trying instead to locate these plants and their timing so that as coal use goes down–it’s been going down in the United States since the early 1980s–as it goes down you have to find jobs for… those in the community and I think this idea is a creative one to move the technology and the plant nearer to those areas so that you can develop a more balanced and fair result.”

He said the planners responsible for new renewable energy technologies are working to bring plant operations near coal communities. The Biden administration has proposed this as one of the strategies to address this justice issue during the renewable energy transition.

In another question, Byrne addresses the role and duty of Korea in the climate crisis. Byrne cited Korea’s Green Climate Fund and Korean leadership of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as two examples of how Korea has put in place policies and people setting the country up to be a leader in the climate change crisis. He said Korea has also established credibility with key stakeholders in the United States, Latin America, east and southeast Asia, and Africa.

“I think it is natural for the world to look to Korea not only to have that kind of leadership role in these international or multinational organizations but also to lead with its own policies and strategies. I think that Korea is going to be under increasing pressure to come up with some important new ideas in this regard.”

“I think again that leadership is very important to the international effort to act on climate change. Because as you probably know, we have to have all continents working on this problem together.”

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