What does the future look like for energy, and for our jobs?

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David Rabley, Energy Transition and Sustainability Global Lead for Energy, Accenture: Clearly the consequences of a price shock on a part of the energy sector - gas, primarily, and oil to a degree, has very far reaching consequences.

Robin Pomeroy, host, Radio Davos: Welcome to Radio Davos, the podcast from the World Economic Forum to looks at the biggest challenges and how we might solve them. On this episode, we're looking at two separate but related issues that will be central to discussions at the Annual Meeting in Davos, which is just days away: the future of energy and of jobs.

In part one, we hear about how the energy transition, getting clean and secure energy to all, can get back on track in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year, which led to some perverse energy outcomes.

David Rabley: There was the reintroduction of coal into the energy mix, into parts of the generation system where we thought we'd seen the end of coal, and this is really a challenge.

Robin Pomeroy: So where will the discussions in Davos, where energy will be a central issue, lead on energy?

Roberto Bocca, Head of Energy, Materials and Infrastructure at the World Economic Forum: I think we will hear about radical collaboration. We are not going to change an energy system just with business as usual. And this is not business as usual, it's a radical change that needs to happen.

Robin Pomeroy: And in part two of today's episode, we talk about the future of jobs. What are the jobs that will be most in demand in a rapidly changing world?

Saadia Zahidi, head of the World Economic Forum’s Centre for the New Economy and Society: There is a lot of opportunity in these shifts and transformations that are taking place. But one thing young people will have to reconcile themselves to that maybe previous generations did not is constant reskilling and upskilling.

Robin Pomeroy: The energy transition, technological change and the increasing need for education and care. We find out what to expect in the world of work.

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I'm Robin Pomeroy at the World Economic Forum. And with this look at two central issues for Davos 2023.

David Rabley: It's a great time for the annual meeting.

Robin Pomeroy: This is Radio Davos.

For the first time in three years, the winter Davos is back. The World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting will bring more than 2,700 leaders from government, business and civil society together for a meeting whose theme is 'cooperation in a fragmented world'.

And we'll be bringing you daily coverage of the event from the Radio Davos booth in the heart of the conference centre in Davos.

In this episode, though, we're looking at two areas of vital importance at Davos. In the second half of the podcast, Saadia Zaidi, head of the World Economic Forum's Centre for the New Economy and Society, talks about the Future of Jobs, a report published just ahead of Davos 2023 that looks at the rapidly changing world of work.

But before that, we're looking at energy, a sector that was hugely disrupted by Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year, which has contributed to the global struggle against inflation and which remains pivotal to whether we can combat climate change.

Just days ahead of Davos 2023. I spoke to David Rabley, who leads the energy transition practice for oil and gas at Accenture, and to Roberto Bocca, head of energy materials and infrastructure at the World Economic Forum. He's just published a report called Securing the Energy Transition, which looks at the upheaval in the energy sector over the last year and asks, what should businesses and policymakers do now to get the energy transition back on track? I started by asking Roberto Bocca why the report says we are experiencing an 'unprecedented energy crisis'.

Roberto Bocca: It is unprecedented because we had the energy crisis in the 1970s, the big energy crisis that everybody remembers, but that was more about oil and gas than energy at large. This crisis is really having a knock-on effect on all the supply chain, on the food cost and on many other elements.

The other piece that there is is also if you think of what an energy system has to deliver, so sustainability, affordability and also security. This crisis is affecting all those dimensions. Sustainability is affected because there is a going back to use more fossil fuel in some cases to make sure there is energy. Then affordability is affected because the prices have been increasing with knock-on effect across the world, not just in some geography but everywhere. And so you have then the element of energy security that is critical for this report and what I'm sure we'll be discussing later.

Robin Pomeroy: Yes. And the report looks at policy responses - what needs to be done. So it sets out the problem, the unprecedented crisis, as you're calling it, and looks at policy responses and it talks a lot about - kind of critical in this report of some policymakers, saying there's been short-term responses in terms of making sure people can still fill their tank of gas in their car, a short-term thing that won't help us perhaps in the long run. David, maybe I'll turn to you. How do you bridge this gap between the short term and the longer term thinking for policymakers involved in energy?

David Rabley: Robin, I think it's a it's a good lens to look at - what we do in the immediate term to address the near and visible need of meeting our energy requirements versus balancing a longer term line of sight to the bigger question at hand.

And so what I think we really mean in this report is that we need to be careful about solutions that appear very attractive in the near term, but perhaps not moving in parallel or in the direction that we need for the longer run.

And one of the highlights, of course, was there was the reintroduction of coal into the energy mix, into parts of the the generation system where we thought we'd seen the end of coal. And and this is really a challenge because of the emittive nature of that fuel. But it's also a challenge because it's accessible, it's low cost the technology burdens are not there.

And so what we're really referring to in this report is making sure that as we unfold those short term actions continuously we're also thinking of the impact on the longer term.

And and here's where I have some some optimism as well. Because when we think of one of the key responses to the curtailment of Russian gas, which is essentially gas moving from from the east to the west of Europe, we've seen an accelerated response in terms of bringing LNG into into the European system. And in that in some cases, that can mean that infrastructure that might have taken two or three years to be established is being able to be put in within within 12, 14 months. Now, here's the trade off now going forward, is that is is that going to lock Europe into a source of energy, a gas source of energy as a result of that infrastructure and the life of it, which could be 10, 15, 20 years.

Or is it that it's something that has some optionality for for the future? And I think the optionality is really important because that infrastructure can be repurposed or leveraged in a low-carbon system as well, if it is being planned with both the short and the long-term measures in mind.

Robin Pomeroy: What kind of infrastructure you're talking about there, that is that the LNG, the liquid liquefied natural gas infrastructure.

David Rabley: Yes. So we've seen the regasification infrastructure being added, particularly into northwest Europe and Germany over the last year. That is addressing the immediate needs of industry at home in terms of that gas supply. But it is, the critics would look at that and say, we're basically locking ourselves into or potentially locking ourselves into contracts for that gas, for that infrastructure that have to extend, you know, at least into into a decade.

So what we're calling for in this report is is making sure that when we're we're seeing the immediate 'stop the bleeding' actions in response to the energy crisis that we're doing so in a way which is also - and I believe it's very possible - is also addressing optionality and flexibility in the energy system that enables security and sustainability.

Robin Pomeroy: But that is a major problem, isn't it? With energy it's big, costly, long-term investments for certain technologies. Once you've built a plant like that or indeed a gas pipeline from from the east of Europe to the west, you need a return on that investment, which could take years and years. How flexible can you actually be when it comes to that kind of infrastructure?

David Rabley: I think it's less the return question, Robin. It's more making sure that as timelines are accelerated and planning is brought forward, that we are keeping in mind that maybe the end stage of that infrastructure is to support some of the transition energy sources and opportunities as well.

One case in point here is that if you think for a second of the evolution of of maybe the shipping industry, it will require, we believe, ammonia as a fuel well into the future. And actually the LNG infrastructure of today is a great stepping point to enabling that. Same thing for some of the cement and steel plants in Europe, which maybe will require an element of hydrogen going forward. The same infrastructure can have value for that if it is planned and thought-through as it is being deployed.

But what I guess where we're coming back to is that this is a continuous set of investments that are being made. And while we commend the the alignment on the response for this year, we just want to make sure that we're seeing it within the context of the larger picture and recognising that it isn't the case that today's investment in a fossil system is moving in the wrong direction for the energy transition. But it is very, very important that policymakers keep in mind that they need to balance the outcomes for for now, but also the outcomes in the future.

Robin Pomeroy: And in this report, the Securing the Energy Transition report, you actually lay out a ten-point action plan. So kind of bite-sized bullet points of action. Could you give us a flavour of what those ten points are?

David Rabley: Ten is a large number. So we actually chunked it out into four main areas: one on supply, two on demand, three on incentives and four on coordination.

And so let me just say a couple of things about each. So in terms of supply, solving for security does mean a diversified energy mix. It also means making sure that we're getting the right acceleration of renewable sources into the mix.

I think it is fair to characterise the energy crisis at its root cause as being one of under-investment. And what I mean by that is that we saw. 5-7 years of underinvestment in the hydrocarbon sector in advance of the Russian war. And as a result, when the system got squeezed, we saw a flare-up in terms of pricing and a challenge of response.

But equally, the renewable energy system had not been invested in to the point at which it could accommodate that change in demand.

So in terms of supply, very, very important to reinforce a diverse and invested energy supply.

Second, in terms of demand, really, this is about what we can do in the in the short term in terms of managing efficiently and effectively our demand and our consumption, but also pivoting that demand towards electricity and clean consumption solutions.

Something which I think has maybe got a bit of attention, maybe could get more attention, is, again, the challenge of just raw curtailment or pure curtailment requests and actions. Here we have to be very careful. It is important that the market signals are heard and it's important that curtailment comes alongside an incentive to switch to a cleaner solution.

Robin Pomeroy: By curtailment you mean policies that are just telling us to stop using certain dirtier fuels.

David Rabley: Yes. Or restricting consumption in order to balance the the demand on the energy system. So our call out here is to make sure that that restriction also offers a solution in terms of pivoting towards that demand for cleaner energy types.

Third, in terms of fiscal measures and incentives. We do believe that there is a huge role to be played by policymakers, by governments in terms of incentivising that investment to be deployed into the right energy mix going forward, to bridge that clean investment gap and to make sure that any sort of relief which is provided is not blunting the market signal, but is tailored towards addressing those most in need of of help.

And it's I think it's something we've seen over the last year that it's been quite a challenge to tailor that those those that support for consumers experiencing high energy prices, to tailor it just to those more vulnerable or lower income population groups. And so very important to be efficient in terms of those measures and to make sure that the consequences of them are passing through.

And then finally, coordination. We do think that the challenge we've seen in terms of energy security is not one that we are encouraging every nation to solve individually and for itself. You know, yes. there's a shift in terms of the importing nations and the exporting nations as the energy mix changes. But we do think that there is there's real value from coordination, from trust, from investment across borders. But that investment is going to start to look quite different. We're going to see increasingly an electrified energy mix. And as a result, we anticipate that we're going to have to revisit some of the opportunities ahead in terms of managing electricity flows, in particular, of course, across borders.

Robin Pomeroy: So we have this unprecedented crisis. And you've suggested the ways that we need to move forward to address that, short term and long term. Just wondering, you know, with kind of a horizon of about a decade, we're meant to be moving towards this goal of net zero. Roberto, could I ask this one to you then? Will this crisis speed up the move towards net zero or will it slow it down? We've been moving back to coal fired power stations in Europe, in places that had phased them out. But equally we're seeing the cost of fossil fuels and our dependency on fossil fuels being a geopolitical risk. It's a multifaceted problem. Is it easy to say speed up the transition away from fossil fuels and to climate friendly energies? Or will it slow it down? Can we say that?

Roberto Bocca: So there are many point of view on this question. I'll give you the short answer that I think it will speed it up. The one thing I qualify, though, is that I don't think is a speed up of the transition from fossil fuel to renewable energy. That's a bit of a simplistic way of looking at the energy transition. First of all, energy transition is not only about climate, and I think the current crisis has underlined how climate is very important. But other dimensions, notably the security and affordability of energy, are as important. And I think governments now realise that it's also their competitiveness as a country depends on energy security.

And so this transition that again I qualify as a transition around these three axes, not only the climate axis, it's going to be necessary. And so people will do - will be necessary to make this transition accelerated.

The other piece I wanted to underline is not only from fossil fuel to renewables. If you think of what happened in the 1970s with the oil crisis, then one outcome of that was efficiency. The other outcome was some other measures and some other action and so on. But I think in this crisis, efficiency will have to be also one of the big answers.

And then the other answer is to look at the complexity of the energy system all the way from supply to distribution - David spoke about the infrastructure - to the demand side - the hard to abate sector and so on. All of those need to be tackled and can be tackled. And I would say there is even more complexity, not just to put more, you know, down on the conversation, but there is even more complexity - that is the intersection of the energy system with the related systems, being water, food and many other systems.

So it is very complex. So I think the way we will solve this is first of all, realising the complexity, accepting that is complex and addressing it head on. And as I said, I think governments and all stakeholders are really keen in making this transition happen because it's not only an issue of environment per se - already so important - but is an issue more of competitiveness and importance for society.

Robin Pomeroy: That's very interesting. Roberto. You know the links between energy and water and agriculture and industry and all these sectors, and that's, I suppose, why a meeting of the type we'll be having in Davos can be so useful because you'll have players in all those sectors. They're coming together and sharing a conversation. So, to both of you now, what is it do you think you'll want to hear? What is it you expect to hear at this Davos meeting?

Roberto Bocca: First of all, I think I would like to hear and I think we will hear about- radical collaboration. We talk about it. We are not going to change an energy system as any major system in our economy, just with business as usual. And this is not business as usual - it's a radical change that needs to happen.

There are all the possibilities, and we know that society is able to address major issues and solve them when there is a radical approach to it. So I think radical collaboration across industry, across sectors, across value chains, across supply chains is critical.

And we are expecting that in Davos there will be a lot of conversation around this radical collaboration and action that need to be taken in the short run, but with a long-term view. So that would be my first expectation. David?

David Rabley: I think it's a great time for the Annual Meeting, Roberto. The last 12 months, I think, have actually illuminated for many, in truth, some of that complexity you've been talking about, which is that it isn't a silver bullet solution. But in fact what we need to see is that combination of bringing all of the relevant actors and solutions onto the table.

Clearly the consequences of a price shock on a part of the energy sector, in this case, gas primarily, and oil to a degree, has very far reaching consequences. But what we've also seen this year is those consequences are not evenly distributed. The consequences landed far more heavily on Europe than they did North America, for example. And I think what we're going to see is that while there's a lot of good focus and good policy that's been already developed, that will fall short if it doesn't take a global perspective. And I think that underpins your call out for radical collaboration.

We do need to make sure that we're thinking about this in a full global solution. The consequences of the energy crisis, but the consequences also on the energy transition are not evenly distributed and not the same across regions. And I think we've had a bit of a taste of of how that can unfold. And I think, you know, the Davos meeting is a great opportunity to start to maybe rebuild a little bit or connect some of those conversations in a new way and think about how to try to kind of move forward in terms of both sustainability and security together, not not one or the other at odds.

Robin Pomeroy: David Rabley, Energy Transition and Sustainability Global Lead for Energy at Accenture. And you also heard Roberto Bocca, head of energy at the World Economic Forum.

You can find the report Securing the Energy Transition on our website - weforum.org.

The energy transition is likely to have a big impact on the world of work - with new jobs being created in new energy technologies. And that's one of the findings of a new report from the World Economic Forum called Jobs of Tomorrow.

Published just ahead of Davos 2023, the Jobs of Tomorrow report analyses the jobs market in 10 countries - Australia, Brazil, China, Germany, India, Japan, South Africa, Spain the UK and the USA - focusing on the demand for those green jobs and also jobs in the caring sectors.

Before she left for Davos, I caught up with Saadia Zahidi, head of the World Economic Forum’s Centre for the New Economy and Society, and asked her what the Jobs of Tomorrow report is all about.

Saadia Zahidi: It's very influenced by what has been going on in the last few years. So I think we all remember the time right at the beginning of the pandemic, where we were all applauding the the health workers, the essential workers, the care workers, the educators, the teachers that do so much of the critical roles across our economies and societies. And what we tried to do is look at what is the jobs outlook around those social jobs, so to speak, that are so critical to our societies.

The second piece is everything that's going on around climate mitigation and adaptation. That is obviously going to create a whole new set of jobs as well. And we're trying to understand what are those green jobs and what is the outlook for them as well.

Robin Pomeroy: Let's look at the care sector then first. It's true, isn't it, that around the world people were applauding for care workers and we realised these are jobs that are very human, they're not going to be replaced by robots anytime soon, although there might be some areas of automation in healthcare that we know about. What is the future for people in the caring sectors around the world? Because these are incredibly important but often really undervalued, on a monetary level and maybe on a societal societal level. Will that change, do you think?

Saadia Zahidi: So that's exactly the issue. I think you're you're absolutely right that these roles are under-valued. We need much more of them. That is very clear. In fact, by our estimations, there are 64 million new social jobs, which includes education, healthcare and care that are required in these 10 economies that we covered in the report. And that's just these economies, elsewhere in the world the numbers are going to be massive.

I think we know that we need more of these jobs, but to make them an attractive profession and to reward them the way society should reward them, we need to look very differently at certification, we need to look differently at professionalisation of some of these roles in places where they are not, and wages, because these are often some of the lowest paid work in most economies.

Robin Pomeroy: Are there regional differences in this? I'm from the UK, which is going through a quite a crisis right now, it would seem in the healthcare system - strikes, nurses are going on strike, paramedics and elsewhere in the economy. And and there's a huge cost of living crisis as well with inflation running at 10% or more. Wages aren't keeping up. So we could look in Western Europe and there's a battle there for wages and for working conditions that are acceptable. Is the picture the same around the world or are you seeing differences?

Saadia Zahidi: You know, things look quite different across sectors and across regions.

So first, just to break down that 64 million number: when it comes to healthcare, that's where there is the greatest need, 33 million additional jobs required. When it comes to education, 21 million new roles required. And then pure care, which is elder care, child care, that is 10 million new roles required.

Now, of course, when we break that down across different regions, South Africa, for example, has some of the the greatest needs. In Brazil and Spain, there's an 80-90% increase that's required compared to the current number of social jobs in these economies.

The numbers are less in terms of just simply quantity in a lot of the Western world, but much more does need to be done, to your point, on improving living wages essentially for the workers in those professions, and especially if we think about what's happened in the last three years and with the burnout and stress that so many of those workforces have faced, many are leaving those roles and very few people are being attracted currently to those roles.

So it's not just of importance now. It's also something that's going to look very different in five years' time, in six years' time. And health systems will not be prepared for future crises if we continue to let this sort of brain drain happen within the social sector.

Robin Pomeroy: And so people will be coming to Davos, people from governments, from industry, from sectors. They'll be discussing the future of jobs and the changing world of work. What would you be hoping to hear from their discussions on this. What are the things that the decision-makers need to be doing?

Saadia Zahidi: Well, I think first and foremost, there has to be a recognition that there is a very large ROI in investing in these jobs - return on investment from investing in these jobs. $11 trillion is one of the calculations around the care economy. That's just the care economy.

Obviously, there are similar returns, even larger returns, when it comes to education, when it comes to health.

So we need to change how we think about this. These are not areas where governments should be pulling back. These are areas where a lot more investment needs to go in. And these need not be inflationary investments. These are things that need to be done to heighten societal resilience in the long term.

So we're going to be bringing together many leaders around this conversation, around thinking of this as an investment for the future resilience of societies, in particular our Jobs Consortium, which brings together CEOs and ministers from around the world.

But social jobs are not the only area they're going to be looking at. Green jobs is the other aspect. And the way we tried to calculate that is understand if all ten of these economies that we were looking at wanted to be as good as the Nordic economies when it comes to their energy transition, which green jobs and highly green skilled roles would they need to increase across their economies? And while the overall number, the absolute number, turns out to be about 12 million, that is an over 66% increase when it compares to the current number of green jobs in these countries. So there really needs to be a very rapid change, which means more green skills. That's another piece that we'll be addressing with our Reskilling Revolution Consortium. And much more investment, thinking about the job creation potential of green infrastructure, for example.

Robin Pomeroy: We hear a lot about the energy transition. We hear a lot about how that will change the way we generate energy, how we consume energy, how we fuel transport and industry and heat our homes and this kind of thing. So it's clear that that's a growing sector all around the world. But I wonder what are those jobs that maybe didn't exist or people weren't thinking about ten or 20 years ago? What are the green jobs of the future that we're talking about?

Saadia Zahidi: So there's a very wide spectrum, I think similar to social jobs where you can be a teacher, but you can equally be somebody who's working in a care home. Similar to that, there's a very wide spectrum. So for example, everything from people that are working in agriculture and forestry will need to have a very different kind of green skills. In fact, the majority of their skills will need to be focused on the green and environmental aspect of their work. But that also goes all the way through to environmental construction roles, engineers, in particular environmental, civil and chemical engineers. So there's a very wide spectrum, both blue collar roles and white collar roles, and all together they can contribute to a greener economy.

Robin Pomeroy: Do you think there's a realisation? You talk to a lot of industry people, a lot of policymakers. Is there a realisation, are universities geared up for this? Are the skills being developed and is it widespread enough yet? Has that work started?

Saadia Zahidi: Certainly not enough. And that is where some of what we'll be doing in Davos will be set up to create those partnerships, because we need, to your point, a greater supply of those skills, so much greater focus in universities, in educational institutions and high schools and apprenticeships and in vocational training that gear people up for these growing social and green jobs.

We equally need greater recognition in terms of the investments that are required to actually develop these sectors. Without that, there isn't necessarily going to be this revolution around green and social jobs that we're predicting. It needs that investment to happen as well.

So both sides are needed, the demand side and the supply side. But at the same time, I think we also have to make sure that there is a focus on those that are going to be losing out from these changes. So on the one hand, the green transition is going to create a lot of jobs. On the other hand, there will be those that are working in what are known as brown sectors that are going to be losing out their roles. And so there has to be a greater focus on ensuring that this is not only about the growing roles or the growing skills, but also about ensuring that those that will be losing out, that may be displaced, are reskilled, are upskilled and are supported in their transition to new roles.

Robin Pomeroy: You know, there's a lot of sometimes political resistance to some of these transformational things the energy transition, which means moving away from fossil fuels which have been very lucrative, in some cases been lots of jobs. Think of the coal miners, which is still in some parts of the world, there are political pressures to maintain those jobs, maintain subsidies for those industries. Do you see in your time here as you've been working on these issues, has that changed or is that a battle that's still being fought, do you think, in government, national and local governments?

Saadia Zahidi: I think there's some positive changes under way at the moment. The green transition essentially got sped up by what has happened over the course of the last one year. There are so many breakthroughs now when it comes to greener energy sources. So suddenly the technology is in place, the incentives are in place, the public private partnerships are starting to come together. And so I think the positive or the pull is much greater now than perhaps some of the concerns in the past. And now there's greater clarity on also understanding skills adjacency. There's a science to this. We can actually very clearly articulate for somebody who will be losing out on a declining industry, there's a possibility to migrate relatively rapidly with perhaps 2 to 3 months of upskilling and transition support, into that new emerging, greener energy role.

Robin Pomeroy: Another report you're putting out this week is the Chief Economists Outlook, which is a nearly quarterly survey of economic sentiment. You talk to chief economists around the world. We'll be looking separately into this on Radio Davos. But I wonder, as I've got you here, we're talking about jobs. Obviously globally, jobs is linked to the global economy. There's recessions on the horizon. Inflation is this huge risk at the moment. Do you have any indication of how that will affect the global job market?

Saadia Zahidi: So the Chief Economists Outlook is very interesting at the beginning of 2023 because there's a lot of certainty in many of the things that the chief economists are collectively predicting. About two-thirds of them expect a global recession to take place. Most of them expect that inflation will slightly come down by the end of 2023, but that it will still be fairly high. Most of them expect that central banks in Europe and in the United States will continue to have a fairly tight monetary policy up until the end of 2023 at the very least. So a lot of certainty.

Where there is a much more mixed picture and where there's a real split in the views of the chief economists is when it comes to jobs. So their view is 50% expect labour markets to be in better shape and 50% expect it to be in worse shape.

Robin Pomeroy: The definition of uncertainty, then.

Saadia Zahidi: Exactly. And very much because so far, despite all of the economic turbulence, western labour markets have remained relatively resilient, especially in the United States, but also in Europe. And so that's part of the uncertainty that they're predicting. And of course, we know that in much of the emerging world, in many developing economies, labour markets have not done well in the last few years. There's very high levels of youth unemployment, very high levels of cost of living crisis, very low wages, underemployment. And so there's this mixed picture globally, and that's also part of what they're seeing.

Robin Pomeroy: Right. Can I ask you a kind of almost philosophical question about jobs? You know, if you were talking to a young person, a teenager today, be that in Switzerland or Pakistan or Africa or the USA, their life stretching ahead of them, it's going to be very unclear now what their career will be, whatever kind of sector they might be looking at. Where is there hope for optimism for a young person who's looking out at a world of work which is very uncertain right now?

Saadia Zahidi: It is very uncertain. But I think if younger people think about purpose, I think that's likely to serve them very well. So for somebody who is passionate about, for example, health or education, it's very clear that the demand for these professions will only increase, not decline. Similarly, when it comes to the digital revolution that we're all a part of every single day, it's very clear that those are skills that we're going to need more and more and more of.

And third, when it comes to climate, that so many of the younger generation are passionate about, it's very clear that most professions are going to need better technology-related skills that relate to green technology. They're going to require overall ethos that relates to the green transition that has to take place. And so there is a lot of opportunity in these shifts and transformations that are taking place.

But one thing young people will have to reconcile themselves to that maybe previous generations did not is constant reskilling and upskilling. You simply can no longer expect that your university degree is going to serve you for a 30-40-year career, if it frankly ever did.

Robin Pomeroy: Saadia Zahidi, thanks to her and to our other guests, Roberto Bocca and David Rabley.

You can find both reports mentioned in this episode: the Future of Jobs, and Securing the Energy Transition, on our website where you can also follow all the action Davos 2023 - for that, visit wef.ch/wef23 and follow us across across social media using the hashtag #WEF23.

And make sure you’re following Radio Davos which will be going daily during the Davos week, which starts on Monday 16 January.

This episode of Radio Davos was presented by me, Robin Pomeroy, with editing by Taz Kelleher and studio production by Gareth Nolan.

We will be back very soon, but for now thanks to you for listening and goodbye.