GLASGOW, SCOTLAND – In a panel session called ‘So, You Want a Green Job?’ at the recently-concluded COP26 Climate Conference, the Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for Apprenticeships and Skills for Her Majesty’s government, Alex Burghart, described the “primary obsession” of his office in response to a question about the role of indigenous and marginalized communities in the burgeoning “green” economy:
“A large part of my job is talking to the people who are not going to go down the university path,” Burghart replied, focusing instead on those who will “go straight to the jobs market or go and get higher technical skills [to] work on the nuclear power plants of tomorrow and help us build the green ships of the next decade.”