Workforce skilling and development in the energy sector

This article is authored by Paridhi Mishra and Hisham Mundol.

Over the last three decades, India has lived through three major economic transformations: the liberalisation of the 1990s, the digital revolution of the 2000s, and the rise of platform technologies in the 2010s. We are now entering a fourth transformation—one that will define not just growth, but survival: the age of climate competence.

Skill (Shutterstock)

This is the moment when every sector of the economy is being reshaped by climate risks, climate technologies, climate policy, and the expectations of global markets. Yet our national conversation continues to orbit around three familiar levers: Finance, technology, and policy. All are important, all are necessary—but none are sufficient. Because what will ultimately decide whether India thrives in this new era is not capital or code or regulation. It is a capability.

For the first time in history, a developing nation must deliver both high growth and low emissions simultaneously. India does not have the luxury of a high-emissions phase followed by a clean-up phase. We must build, manufacture, urbanise, electrify, and expand—while also decarbonising, adapting, and protecting our people from intensifying climate shocks.

This is not only unusual; it is unprecedented. And it demands new skills, new mindsets, and new ways of working across the entire workforce. The question is no longer whether climate competence matters. It is how quickly we can build it at scale.

To meet this challenge, we must look beyond the limited discourse of “green jobs”. Much of the global discourse frames the green transition as the creation of new, purpose-built jobs—solar installers, EV technicians, carbon accountants. These jobs matter. But focusing on them alone entirely misses the point.

The real shift is that every job is becoming climate-shaped. When procurement teams select suppliers, or bankers price risk, they are making climate decisions. When architects draft a building, teachers shape a curriculum, or city administrators write tenders, they too are making climate decisions. Climate competence is no longer a niche skill set. It is becoming a core competency of a modern economy.

Fortunately, India has navigated capability revolutions before. When digitisation swept across Indian industry, companies scrambled to retrain large parts of their workforce. When GST arrived, finance teams had to relearn the rules of the game. When AI entered boardrooms, leadership training evolved almost overnight.

Climate will require an even larger shift—not because the subject is arcane, but because it touches every function, every decision, and every role. The biggest mistake we can make is assuming that a small sustainability team can shoulder this entire transition. We do not need pockets of expertise. We need a system of competence.

As India enters this new era, four groups within organisations will shape the speed and quality of the transition.

First, we need leadership that can steer through climate risk. Boards, CEOs, senior bureaucrats, and institutional heads need fluency in climate risk, disclosure regimes, and the fast-changing regulatory environment. Global investors already expect this, and soon domestic markets will too. Leadership climate competence is now a determinant of business continuity, competitiveness, and credibility.

Second are the enablers who embed climate into the engine-room of organisations. Functions like HR, finance, procurement, and operations are the ones that convert strategy into practice. If these functions don’t shift, the organisation cannot shift. HR must build a climate-literate workforce and align KRAs, while Finance integrates transition risk into every decision. Operations must manage energy, waste, and efficiency differently, while Procurement rewires supply chains for resilience.

Third, we rely on specialists who reimagine the “how” of growth. Engineers, designers, lawyers, health professionals, and data scientists sit where innovation meets real-world constraints. A climate-competent specialist is one who can design a circular product, model a flood scenario, rework a factory layout, structure a transition financing instrument, or build an adaptation plan for a district. This is where India’s climate ambition becomes implementation.

Finally, we must support the educators and trainers who prepare the next generation. Teachers, professors, vocational instructors, and corporate L&D leads shape the capabilities of tomorrow’s workforce. Climate literacy must enter engineering, management, social science, law, design, agriculture, medicine, and vocational programmes. This is not a curriculum tweak. It is a curriculum rethink.

Across the country, we are seeing promising sparks of climate competence in action. We see it in a polytechnic in Tamil Nadu integrating green building modules and a Maharashtra skilling initiative training solar technicians in rural districts. We see corporations embedding climate-linked KPIs across non-sustainability roles and state governments experimenting with climate budgeting and risk assessments. These are encouraging early examples—but they are nowhere near the scale needed for a $5-trillion, climate-resilient economy.

If India invests in climate competence, it can lead the world. The global race for climate talent has already begun. Countries that build capability at scale will shape supply chains, attract investment, and lead in technology adoption. India has two extraordinary advantages: a young workforce and a proven ability to skill at scale when the nation commits to it. But we must act with clarity and intention.

What India needs now is a national effort to green existing jobs, not just create new ones. We need the integration of climate competence into universities, polytechnics, and executive education, alongside clear skill standards for emerging climate roles. We need public–private–philanthropy partnerships to scale climate training and a fundamental shift in leadership development to include climate fluency by default.

This is not an environmental agenda. It is a competitiveness agenda. It is a resilience agenda. It is a national development agenda. Finance will fund the transition. Technology will enable it. Policy will guide it. But people will deliver it.

If India builds climate competence across its workforce—from leaders to technicians, from educators to engineers—we can not only navigate the transition ahead but shape it. The next decade will decide whether India becomes a climate-ready powerhouse. And that depends not on what we commit to, but on what our people are prepared to deliver.

This article is authored by Paridhi Mishra, deputy director & programme head, Ashoka-Environmental Defence Fund Climate Corps Fellowship and Hisham Mundol, chief advisor, EDF, India.