The 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law allocated $1 billion in grants for manufacturing of electric car batteries. Yet despite the newly available funds, a key piece was missing to deploy these funds: the skilled labor trained to make batteries.

It’s not only batteries. Even with policies and funding that support a variety of climate-focused technologies, the United States lacks a way to source, train, and sustain workers to do the new jobs fast enough to reach its climate targets—and to transition the workers in a way that is just or that brings a new workforce into the economy.

Among the obstacles: insufficient funding for the federal retraining program for dislocated workers, a higher education system that heavily favors four-year institutions, and even the way we talk about so-called blue-collar jobs. That’s according to a panel of experts who spoke at a May 10 Harvard Business School conference about the opportunities and challenges that climate change poses for businesses.

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A just transition to a trained climate workforce must include lower-paid workers in the old industries, according to panelist Evette Ellis, cofounder and chief workforce developer of ChargerHelp!, a Los Angeles-based technology first start-up that trains people to operate and maintain public charging stations for electric vehicles. Now present 17 states, ChargerHelp! has hired and trained many employees – focusing on women and people of color – who are accustomed to earning low hourly wages and working with unpredictable schedules. The company’s starting hourly rate: $30 an hour.

“We have to make sure that we leave a percentage of space for folks that never were making the good money in the old industry,” Ellis said.

Opportunities worth billions of dollars

A revolutionary change in U.S. industrial policy, funded by billions of federal dollars, was launched by three related laws that took effect in 2021-2022. In addition to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which includes $80 billion for a variety of climate technologies, the measures include the Inflation Reduction Act, whose centerpiece is $369 billion in climate tax credits, manufacturing investments, and other initiatives.

It will do more to fight climate change than any previous U.S. legislation, according to former Energy Secretary Ernest J. Moniz and former CIA Director John M. Deutch’s recent op-ed in Foreign Affairs. Collectively, the new laws will accelerate the United States’ transition to clean energy in specific technological directions: electricity storage, grid modernization, hydrogen fuel, carbon capture and sequestration, electric vehicles, and carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere and oceans, Moniz and Deutch note.

Workers with appropriate skills will be needed for these new jobs.

So how did the US Department of Energy resolve its battery workforce problem? Collaboration.

Speaking at the conference, Kate Gordon, senior advisor to U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm, said that the Departments of Energy and Education partnered to create a battery workforce initiative based on Germany’s model of education. Germany’s model brings together industry, labor and the education system to train workers based on market demand, unlike the U.S. system of training people and hoping they find jobs.

There is no one solution to ensuring a just transition to tomorrow’s climate workforce, she said.

“It is extraordinarily place based,” Gordon said. “There is no one answer to what a just transition is or what a good community benefits plan looks like. It relies on the company having done the work to think about the place that they’re going to be in,” she said.

And major barriers remain to creating a larger skilled climate workforce in the United States.

Challenges in retraining workers—and even job recruiters

President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda included additional funding for the largest federal program to retrain workers who lose their jobs because of major employment shifts, such as global trade dynamics or transitions in economic sectors. But this money for the U.S. Department of Labor’s Dislocated Worker Program was not included in the Inflation Reduction Act.

Even recruiters for new climate workers need training. For example, ChargerHelp! once scheduled a training for potential new technicians and no one signed up, Ellis said. Ellis’s recruitment employees told her they had distributed flyers but hadn’t spoken with anyone. So, Ellis paused the training and held monthly discussions with her recruiting staff to explain the content of the courses and why it mattered to employees. When the company advertised the training a second time, people signed up.

“If you don't understand [clean tech] you can't recruit, motivate, inspire, push people toward that,” Ellis said.

Bias toward four-year colleges and universities

In Idaho, for instance, 80 percent of public dollars spent on higher education goes to four-year institutions though half of the state’s college-going population go to community college, said Gordon Jones, president of the College of Western Idaho, a two-year college near Boise. In comparison, community colleges like the College of Western Idaho receive just 20 percent of public dollars, he said.

Community colleges focus on preparing their graduates for employment—and are far less expensive for students than four-year institutions, Jones said. “We've got to challenge ourselves to really strip down to get the employability, not add. More is not always better when it comes to education.”

In addition to federal policy that supports preparing students for employment, we need state governors, state legislatures, and local municipalities that are running school districts to be supportive, said HBS Senior Lecturer Eleanor Laurans, who moderated the panel discussion.

Bias against trade professions

For the past 40 years, the United States has underinvested in trade professions and encouraged engineering students to go into computer science, Jones said. That has left our workforce ill-equipped to transition into clean energy jobs, 60% of which are in the construction industry.

Even commonly used language discourages young people from careers such as an electrician or a plumber, Ellis said. It’s common to hear phrases such as, “you know, they didn't do too well at school, so they're just gonna be a technician.” Instead, Ellis suggests adults should think differently about young people who choose these careers and consider complimenting them: “They are awesome and bright, and they get things really fast, and they actually don't need four years to do what they love to do. And there is a well-paying job for that.”

Proven and promising techniques to train the workforce for climate jobs

The United States has some models that train workers based on market demand. Jones cited Pima Community College near Tucson, Arizona, which he says has worked in partnership with technology company Intel to offer compressed training of 80 hours over two weeks. Students who complete it get jobs with Intel.

And beginning this fall, the Louisa County Public Schools in Mineral, Virginia, is working with ChargerHelp! to provide training for electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) technicians for high school seniors. This may serve as a model for other states. The plan involves offering the course to students and adults in the community, raising their odds of getting the job if they complete and pass the course.

Education and training can be sprinkled throughout your life, for example, by earning professional certifications, Jones said. “These things can over a lifetime add up to truly transformational education. It doesn't have to all happen at once.”

Furthermore, many skills are transferrable from old industries to climate jobs. A range of professions offer useful knowledge—from HVAC technicians and engineers, to project managers and people who work in logistics, Ellis said.

“We need to stop thinking about these as niche occupations where there's the fossil fuel people over here and they're going to be replaced by the green people over here,” Gordon said. “We're greening the entire system. So, every single industry and occupation has the potential to become part of the decarbonization and resilience solution.”