Globe Summit takeaways: Maura Healey on building the climate workforce

“Whoever figures out this workforce component first, wins.”

Gov. Maura Healey sat down with Boston Globe climate reporter Sabrina Shankman on Thursday at the Globe Summit to discuss how Massachusetts is creating a workforce to combat the climate crisis.

Healey spoke to a crowd at the Harvard Club of Boston, with the talk also live-streamed for those to watch at home.

The governor started the discussion by emphasizing the importance of working together across the government, regions, and private sectors to get climate work done.

“We all have to work together,” she said. “The clean energy industry is thriving in Massachusetts.”

But in order to meet the state’s ambitious climate goals, Healey said, “we need the workforce to do it.”

Building that workforce, Healey said, starts in the classroom.

Healey spoke about a program where high school students are exposed to experiential learning about careers in the energy sector, and another initiative through the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center that funds and supports apprenticeship programs.

Healey said the programs target low-income students and “people who haven’t been as exposed to certain career opportunities.”

“Having spent a lot of time with young people, this is where it’s at,” she said. “The energy they are bringing to this, they want to be part of that culture.”

Removing barriers to attend community college and improving vocational training, including a program training workers in offshore wind, will help meet the needs of the energy economy as well, according to Healey.

Healey said she views the response to climate change as a competition.

“We know what we need to do in terms of addressing climate. Workforce is really key to this,” she said. “Whoever figures out this workforce component first, wins.”

As a member state of the US Climate Alliance, Healey said one of the things she is focused on is growing a million apprenticeships by 2035.

She said she hopes Massachusetts will “lead by example” to help scale their programs through the alliance.

Healey also addressed concerns about pivoting away from the fossil fuel industry.

Healey recently hosted a gathering of New England governors and counterparts from some Canadian provinces, pledging to work together toward clean power initiatives. She said she made sure that “labor was at the table” at the meeting earlier this month.

“There are those who have been working in fossil fuel industries who have skills and talents that need to be transferred now to renewable industries,” she said. “What we’re doing is this marriage between labor and workforce and a clean energy transition.”

Seven out of 10 in-demand clean energy jobs have a union training program in Massachusetts, according to Healey.

Shankman ended the discussion by asking Healey what clean energy job she would want to have and why.

Healey said it would be “pretty cool” to be one of the “people that have to go down to install the stuff way down in the ocean.”

“There are so many jobs out there,” she said. “Everything is going to touch this at some point or another.”