Green jobs find international support.

• Author: Block, Ben
• Position: EYE ON EARTH

Sitting in a warm Capitol Hill office building in Washington last May, a panel of green-collar job activists attempted to rally support among a room of sleepy congressional staffers. At the end of the briefing, Van Jones, a civil-rights lawyer-turned-green jobs champion, delivered the message that jolted many audience members out of their afternoon haze. "We are about to enter stagflation," Jones said. "That means people get voted out of office."

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Highlighting the connections between lagging employment and the need to address climate change has become a favorite talking point in the U.S. environmental and labor rights communities. It's the common denominator that can uplift the working poor, provide incentives to wealthy corporations, and still address the growing threat of catastrophic climate change, they say.

Although activists have long discussed the potential of green jobs--positions in the emerging renewable energy, energy efficiency, and other "green economy" industries--political leaders have begun to take notice only in the past year or so. U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama and European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso have promised policies that would create "millions" of green jobs. In December, the United States passed the world's first law that provides funding for green jobs that specifically targets citizens who are traditionally economically depressed.

Green jobs are attracting attention among international negotiators as well. Labor officials from the Group of Eight industrialized nations linked labor issues and environmental policies for the first time ever during a May meeting. They declared that ignoring the need for green-job stimulation "would...