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It is with great pleasure that I accepted the invitation to welcome today's discussion on the needs of the Cypriot economy in green jobs and skills, organised by the Cyprus Human Resources Development Authority, and I particularly congratulate you for this initiative.
It is a fact that for Cyprus to achieve the ambitious environmental targets set by the European Union through the European Green Deal, the utilisation of high quality human resources in green jobs is required. As expected, the transition to a green economy affects the labour market by creating demand from businesses for human resources with specific knowledge and skills in order to enable businesses to remain competitive and sustainable in the future.
The Skills Year for Green and Digital Transition is another tool towards achieving a green transition with social justice, as it promotes the retraining and re-skilling of workers and enables the entry or reintegration of At the same time it helps to integrate environmental impact into all our activities and ensure that our decisions and actions take into account the environmental consequences.
In addition, it reinforces existing knowledge to enable workers to respond to upcoming changes and the overall effort to tackle climate change and helps to disseminate good practices and successful examples from all European programmes. Most importantly, it informs about the new jobs created in the context of the green transition and provides opportunities to get "better" jobs for those who choose to retrain.
According to the European Commission's 2022 survey "Green Skills and Knowledge Concepts: labelling the ESCO* classification", 571 concepts related to skills and knowledge labelled as green are recorded. This knowledge, these new professions, must be promoted to students and to those already in the labour market in order to be able to respond to the new environment that is being created.
As the Office of the Environment Commissioner, we are particularly pleased to participate in the National Action Plan of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security for the European Year of Skills.
As the Office of the Environment Commissioner, we are particularly pleased to participate in the National Action Plan of the Ministry of Labour and Social Security for the European Year of Skills. The active participation of the Ministry of Labour, the Ministry of Education, the State Ministry of Research, the Office of the Environment Commissioner, the ANAD and the Productivity Centre brings together all the partners involved, makes us stakeholders in shaping the training and information programmes and demonstrates in practice the implementation of the 17th Sustainable Development Goal that promotes cooperation.
The cooperation of all of us in the light of the expertise of each of us is the yeast with which the programme for upgrading the skills of our country's human resources and the promotion of green professions is shaped. The Office of the Environment Commissioner is assisting, within the framework of its responsibilities, the whole effort. In addition to enhancing the material developed by the KEPA on green skills, we have undertaken, in cooperation with the Cyprus Corporate Social Responsibility Network-CSR Cyprus, the organization of green skills workshops on a pan-Cypriot scale. The first two workshops have already been held with great success, targeting SMEs. The first one, held in October, was on the implementation of circular economy principles in businesses, and the second one, held in November, was on Corporate Social Responsibility and the prevention of greenwashing. I note that three more workshops are planned in the coming months. The very next workshop on "How to measure and reduce the environmental footprint of my business" is scheduled for 16 January.
In these workshops, businesses and their employees gain knowledge so that they are better prepared and ready to respond to the new framework that is being shaped through the European Green Deal. At the same time, since the workshops also involve companies presenting good practices, those green professions that the market needs now and in the future are identified.
In the light of the above, we welcome the agreement reached at COP28 in Dubai a few days ago to move away from fossil fuels. This is a historic decision which marks the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel era. The text adopted by the 198 participating countries calls for a transition away from fossil fuels to achieve zero emissions by 2050, and calls for a tripling of the world's renewable energy potential by 2030. At the same time, the conference launched the Loss and Damage Fund to support vulnerable countries in coping with the disasters caused by climate change. This decision not only reflects the global commitment to tackle climate change, but also redefines the future of professions by pointing the way to green professions.
Developing green professions and strengthening the necessary skills is therefore a prerequisite for a transition to the green economy, which in turn can become a driver of innovation, job creation and economic resilience. Our commitment to green skills and professions is an investment in the future, a future where our human resources are equipped with the knowledge and expertise needed to lead our country to a new and sustainable economic environment.
In closing, I would like to congratulate again the organisers of today's debate on green professions and all the participants. We look forward with great interest to the results and conclusions of the discussion, as well as the updated AnAD study on the green skills needs in the Cypriot economy 2017-2027.
*ESCO (European Skills, Competences, Qualifications and Occupations) is the multilingual European system of classification of skills, competences, qualifications and occupations.
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