Ensuring a Just Transition for Workers as Economies Shift from Carbon-Intensive to Low-Carbon Industries

The author, representing the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), highlights the vulnerability of Australian regions reliant on coal power, such as the Latrobe Valley. Using the closure of the Hazelwood power station as a case study, the text describes a novel negotiation process involving the Victorian government and multiple private power companies to manage redundancies and redeploy workers. The author advocates for a statutory agency to manage the long-term social impacts of the transition to net zero emissions, noting that worker support for climate action is contingent on fair deals for those displaced.

• Australia's power generation has historically been heavily dependent on coal, with over 80 percent of grid power sourced from black and brown coal until recently, resulting in power generation accounting for approximately 35 percent of the country's 545 million tonnes of annual greenhouse gas emissions.
• The economic impact of power station closures is concentrated in non-urban regions like the Latrobe Valley, Hunter Valley, Central Coast, Lithgow, and Collie, which lack industrial diversification and suffer more severely from job losses than major cities.
• Past structural adjustments in Australia, including the 1990s privatization of power plants in the Latrobe Valley and the 2017 closure of the car industry, were managed poorly, often relying on underfunded, ad hoc 'Band-Aid measures'.
• Historically, forced retrenchments in major plant closures have had poor outcomes: roughly one third of workers find similar employment, one third take lower-skilled/lower-paid work, and one third leave the workforce entirely.
• The 2016 closure of the 1,600 mW Hazelwood brown coal station by Engie provided only five months' notice, prompting the CFMEU to campaign for a coordinated redeployment strategy across other regional power stations (AGL and Energy Australia) to reduce net job losses.
• The author proposes the creation of a statutory agency mandated to manage the social impacts of the energy transition, arguing that voluntary participation by companies is insufficient and that broad support for net zero emissions depends on avoiding 'big losers'.

APA

Maher, T. (n.d.). Ensuring a Just Transition for Workers as Economies Shift from Carbon-Intensive to Low-Carbon Industries. World Resources Institute. https://wriorg.s3.amazonaws.com/expert-perspective-maher.pdf?_ga=2.107084294.525199009.1549850379-1752787116.1523286521

Chicago

Maher, Tony. Ensuring a Just Transition for Workers as Economies Shift from Carbon-Intensive to Low-Carbon Industries. World Resources Institute, n.d. https://wriorg.s3.amazonaws.com/expert-perspective-maher.pdf?_ga=2.107084294.525199009.1549850379-1752787116.1523286521.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Maher |first1=Tony |title=Ensuring a Just Transition for Workers as Economies Shift from Carbon-Intensive to Low-Carbon Industries |publisher=World Resources Institute |url=https://wriorg.s3.amazonaws.com/expert-perspective-maher.pdf?_ga=2.107084294.525199009.1549850379-1752787116.1523286521 |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{maherndensuring, author = {Maher, Tony}, title = {{Ensuring a Just Transition for Workers as Economies Shift from Carbon-Intensive to Low-Carbon Industries}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, url = {https://wriorg.s3.amazonaws.com/expert-perspective-maher.pdf?_ga=2.107084294.525199009.1549850379-1752787116.1523286521}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }