Last summer, I travelled through the pine forests of northern Sweden to a place called Skellefteå on the fringe of the Arctic Circle. I had managed to book the last room available in a pretty basic hotel next to a busy road, which cost more per night than a nice hotel in central Stockholm. The man on reception told me Skellefteå was bursting at the seams: Northvolt, the electric vehicle battery-maker, had transformed it from “left behind” to “boom town” practically overnight.
So when Northvolt filed for bankruptcy last week, it wasn’t just a blow for Europe’s hopes to develop a homegrown EV battery supply chain. It was also a blow to the story — a favourite among many politicians — that the road to net zero will be paved with secure “green jobs” in places that need them.
In truth, the public never found this tale as compelling as politicians seemed to think. Steve Akehurst of Persuasion UK, which analyses the effectiveness of political messages, has tested a number of “green jobs” arguments as a way to “sell” climate action, but they all tend to fall pretty flat with the public. Politicians, on the other hand, lap them up. “[They] work really well with elites — if you poll MPs, particularly Labour MPs, the best argument is ‘jobs’. When you poll the public, it’s mid-table at best,” he told me.