Green skills migration to cut CO2 in Europe, but defence sector vies for workers – think tank
Clean Energy Wire
Recruiting foreign workers with green skills is a valuable policy tool for European countries which struggle to meet their decarbonisation goals, but the same skills may be needed in other sectors, said the Center for Global Development (CGD). In a paper, the researchers aimed to put a number on the decarbonisation benefits of additional workers with green skills, focussing on Italy, Germany, and the United Kingdom. These countries face a green skills shortage and rely to varying degrees on immigration to meet climate targets.
Adding a single additional worker to fill an existing skills gap, like a heating technician installing heat pumps, could reduce emissions by more than one thousand tonnes of CO2 over a period of nine years, the report said.
However, workers with green skills may make larger decarbonisation contributions in their countries of origin, so labour migration must be planned with care to avoid brain drains, said the paper. “Because most possible countries of recruitment also face skill shortages, migration policy should be paired with international training support to ensure that there is a reliable supply of workers,” Sam Huckstep, co-author of the CGD paper, told Clean Energy Wire.
Adding workers to meet climate targets also competes with recruitment pressures in other sectors. Germany faces the risk that increasing defence spending is “likely to lead to increased competition for welders and other overlapping trades between defence and decarbonisation sectors”, Huckstep said.
While migration policy in Europe has become increasingly polarised, the role of labour migration in achieving decarbonisation goals is gaining recognition. Germany has linked the need for immigration reforms to shortages in energy transition sectors. The German government has set up the “Indo-German Green Skills Programme” in 2025 to train workers in India and has relaxed immigration rules in 2023. So far, increased visa grants have not led to increased migration rates.
