The ‘Greta effect’ has driven interest and enrolments in postgraduate environmental degrees - and the green jobs market is crying out for a highly qualified workforce.
Most of the world is governed by 'old people'. Many of whom have been forced to take the climate seriously by a very noisy younger generation.
“We have come here to let [world leaders] know that change is coming whether they like it or not,” was probably the most quoted sentence coming from the COP 24 climate conference in 2019. It was not uttered by the UN Secretary-General nor by any of the Heads of State and Government, but by a 15-year-old from Sweden, Greta Thunberg, who had sparked a powerful global movement of school strikes for climate action.
When activist Greta Thunberg declared that young people were unstoppable in the fight to avert the climate crisis, it seemed a generation stood up and listened. Indeed, many young people are passionate about tackling the climate crisis. And now they’re getting educated on the topic, too.
In recent years, a vast number of climate- and sustainability- focused postgraduate degrees have sprung up, from agroforestry to engineering, sustainable cities, to environmental economics. Given government plans around the globe to restart their economies post-pandemic with a self-styled green industrial revolution, Thunberg may be right: a new climate-focused generation of postgraduates could help reshape the world.
Wouldn't it be good news if they start to get the chance sooner rather than later!? Particularly as they will be so genuinely passionate and will really know what they're talking about.