If we are to talk about economics in general, I think we can't hide the fact that there's a huge divestment happening from the fossil fuel sector. BlackRock investments, the biggest asset manager in the world, came out with research recently showing that $15 trillion has been divested from the fossil fuel sector from different portfolios over the last decade. Yes, if we're thinking about economies, we have to face the fact that the fossil fuel sector is in decline.
Fossil fuel companies are investing in renewable energy. Is that out of goodwill, or do they see that decarbonization is inevitable? If we're talking about jobs in the fossil fuel sector, Jim Stanford released a report for Environmental Defence in January 2021 showing that there were about 170,000 jobs directly tied to fossil fuels. Since 2014, 33,000 of those have been lost. Since COVID another 17,500 jobs in the fossil fuel sector have been lost. Is that because of climate policy or because of other fluctuations in the economy? Between 2014 and 2019 for every job lost in the fossil fuel sector, 42 were created in other industries. I think if we're going to talk economics, we should be clear and we should make visible where the jobs are growing, where we're losing them and why we're losing them. As I said before I don't see economy and environment as being separate. The federal budget clearly placed a climate lens at the heart of the economy. We don't think about just GDP. The federal budget placed a well-being quality of life framework to assess what our economy really is. You know there is an expansion happening, and we have to take that into consideration.