Climate “Australia’s next big employer:” Cannon-Brookes joins push for net zero workforce

Billionaire software developer Mike Cannon-Brookes has declared the climate and clean energy sectors to be Australia’s next big employer, as part of a new push to fill the millions of jobs forecast to be needed to underpin the shift to renewables.

Cannon-Brookes gave a keynote speech at the launch of Careers for Net Zero, a joint campaign led by the Clean Energy Council and Energy Efficiency Council to fill what is rapidly becoming a yawning gap in the workforce as Australia races towards 82 per cent renewables by 2030.

“We have the technology. We don’t have the people – and we don’t have much time,” said the Energy Efficiency Council chief Luke Menzel at the launch of the campaign on Thursday morning.

The groups say at least two million new Australian jobs are required to meet net zero by 2050 and 200,000 to reach the federal government’s 2030 emissions reduction target.

The campaign will highlight 10 Australians who are already working in the sector and also launches an online “career explorer” tool, via the Careers for Net Zero website.

“I’m here to talk to you about climate jobs, because I believe climate jobs are Australia’s next big employer,” Cannon-Brookes told an audience gathered for the campaign launch.

“When we create a tonne of new stuff, which we’ll need to do, it’s going to create a tonne of new jobs.

“As I like to say, the green economy is Australia’s golden ticket. But the biggest risk is not having enough people in the right places to execute on all this.

“Which is why today’s careers fair is such an important moment. It’s going to be a whole of economy effort to keep up with what will be the biggest shift in Australia since someone put rocks on a boat and shipped them overseas to be burnt.

“Every single job in Australia will somehow need to adapt in this transition.”

Cannon-Brookes on Thursday also announced the Australian launch of the global climate job search platform, Terra.do, which is backed by Cannon-Brookes’ philanthropic venture Boundless Earth.

Founded in 2020, Terra.do claims to have helped half-a-million users across 25 countries explore career opportunities in the clean economy over just the last 12 months.

Cannon-Brookes said on Thursday that on its launch in Australia, 4,500 live jobs were available on Terra.do locally.

Also throwing its weight behind the campaign was the Victorian government, which officially launched the re-boot of the state-owned utility the SEC.

As well as developing several gigawatts of new renewables and energy storage, the SEC is promising to help create 59,000 clean energy jobs in the state through its own Centre of Training Excellence.

“My pitch today to anyone here who is considering their next career move or anyone else considering their next investment is the investments and the projects are there, so there will always be work,” said Victoria premier Jacinta Allan.

“The training and support are there. So there will always be workers. You might be among the first Victorians to work their whole career in renewable energy jobs.

“These are the jobs of the future and the chance to invest in something big. The chance to say I was there, I helped to build that – the chance to change our state and our planet for the better.”