The second report of the Green New Deal Group is called The Cuts Won’t Work.
The report argues that the UK is currently missing a historic opportunity in the pre-budget report to tackle public debt, create thousands of new green jobs and kick-start the transformation to a low-carbon economy.
The Cuts Won’t Work shows that, contrary to the policy of all the major political parties, cutting public spending now will tip the nation into a deeper recession by increasing unemployment, reducing the tax received and limiting government funding available to kick-start the Green New Deal. Instead a bold new programme of ‘green quantitative easing,’ rather than simply propping up failing banks, could help reduce the public debt and kick-start the transformation of the UK’s energy supply while creating thousands of new green-collar jobs.
This could be a real opportunity for the UK to show global leadership by implementing an interlinked package that recognises the need for targeted public spending in a downturn. Not to further fuel an economy hard-wired into ever increasing use of fossil fuels, but to revitalise the productive economy and lay the foundations of the low-carbon infrastructure of the future.
The opportunity for action is even more pressing than it was when President Franklin Roosevelt instigated his bold New Deal programme that touched almost every aspect of economy and society say the Group. The timescale is limited by the urgent need to stabilise concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere before the risk of uncontrollable global warming increases significantly. Today, there is a plan on the table that could revitalise our damaged economy while also radically restructuring it for a low carbon future. The vision is needed to implement it before it is too late.
Disclosure: I am one of the eight members of the Green New Deal group
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Having looked at the figures on Green New Deal 2:
Could Green New Deal 2 estimates of the “efficiency” savings possibly be way too low? Congratulations for the whole initiative, otherwise.
My experience of buildings is that FEW existing industrial buildings over 5 years old are heavily insulated, so there are many savings there if incentivised.
Also my experience as a property professional is that Existing houses can be retro-fitted to be “GIANT HEAT STORES”. Super-insulation (shared with Office of Climate Change in 2008) could get natural gas wastage down to half and be rapidly deployed as you employment figures show. Solar collectors could get the stored energy down low into and under the house floors, typically. Underfloor functions at low temperatures and therefore can still work in some of the winter months, but certainly most of the spring autumn and summer.
We need a subsidy for at least the material costs for these and for the expertise.
So we don’t need to do the energy-intensive knock-down-and-rebuild option still underway. There should have to be a very good reason for that due to the waste of embodied energy and thermal mass that entails.
All this needs to be general knowledge. Thanks Richard for all the work.