I have mentioned I was out and about whilst doing some thinking today. One of the things I was sketching out were the objectives of the Green New Deal. I came up with this. Comments welcome:
The objectives of the Green New Deal shall be:
- To create a net zero carbon economy
- To protect against habitat and biodiversity loss
- To ensure every building in the UK is as energy efficient as feasibly possible, and generates power if that can be accommodated within its design
- To promote public transport for all journeys, including and most especially local ones
- To encourage the building of new low and no-carbon housing to meet social need
- To invest in new methods of power generation, transmission and distribution
- To encourage alternative and reduced forms of consumption that reduce the demand on the natural resources of our planet
- To create jobs paying at least a living wage in every constituency of the United Kingdom
- To promote apprenticeships, other training and life long skill creation in those activities undertaken as part of the Green New Deal
- To promote the local economy in every UK region, city, town and community
- To encourage new forms of enterprise that might deliver economic resilience within the sustainable economy
- To encourage approaches to the use of artificial intelligence consistent with the Green New Deal
- To encourage new ways of working consistent with the objectives of the Green New Deal
- To promote sustainable equality, which is defined as an equal proportionate use of the available non-sustainable resources consistent with overall maintenance of the prospects of continuing life on earth of the country irrespective of the financial means of each person
- To reduce inequality in the UK
- To reduce tax abuse within the UK as a mechanism for reducing inequality, promoting social change, repricing market failure and promoting the funding mechanisms of the Green New Deal
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The first 2 are the what, the rest are the how. To sell it you need to push the why.
It is obvious to some (and maybe a lot with many in denial) but it needs the link.
It feels like there should be something around plastic specifically, and possibly chemicals (pesticides)
Thanks
The why will follow
I think plastic is a detail
I don’t mention any other material
I would disagree, I think they are all what.
The what is “doing whatever it takes to ensure we can pass on a base of physical, natural, human and social capital to sustain the planet into the future” then everything falls into this.
The key is to realise that a proper definition of capital and resources realises the value of biodiversity, human capital and education, and social relationships and institution. All of these are resources that we need to continue humanity, and all of these must be preserved.
A definition of capital is at the core of a presentation I am doing on June 27
I will be publishing something then
I will look out for it.
Is there anything to read yet on your work / seminar on a new conceptual framework for accounting? If so I’d be glad to have a point in the right direction.
June 27
I approve!
a good base to build on,
could the international aid budget be protected but not used to promote industialisation in recipient countries but promote objectives compatible with our domestic GND objectives?
could a new accounting/auditing process be established to audit our countries energy consumption in all areas, the type of energy, it’s calorific value and it’s carbon byproduct?
economics only expresses things in terms of money, this makes it very difficult seeing how energy is used or required when it is only expressed as it’s cost,
could we endeavour to survey and understand how much energy is embedded in our imports?
much of the UK’s carbon footprint has been displaced abroad giving a false impression of the true extent of our consumption,
could we form an assembly of engineers and technical experts representing all aspects of energy consumption in the UK that could periodically meet and liase to create an integrated plan and then monitor, amend or adjust it as required during it’s implementation?
All noted, thanks
You mention sustainability, but maybe it deserves more prominence. For example, in the long run we need to transition to an economy in which everything can be recycled. This seems to me to be a major challenge, at least as big as the transition to renewable energy.
I lik it….
I’d like to ban the export of any waste from the UK,
this would create a crisis that would force solutions to be devised,
Scandanavian countries are actually seeking waste imports because they’ve got so good at using their own waste they’re running out of it!
the UK just exports it’s junk and pretends it’s recycling,
what we export is so shoddily sorted it’s now being refused on entry and sent back to us,
Yes to all that.
And to shape the school curriculum so that the citizens of tomorrow are able to understand and take active part in this, giving them a sense of power and ownership of their future, a sense of responsibility towards future generations of humans, but also of other species and of the natural world around them.
So an education objective….seems good
The work you do is really good and informative. Thank you.
In this outlining there are points which perhaps need adjustment; here are a couple:
Point one … do we have to stop at “net zero”?
Point two … protect against habitat and etc.Regards
Jed
The second one has already been added!
Why go below next zero? I have not seen a reason given?
As carbon dioxide levels rush towards the 450 ppm level (https://climate.nasa.gov/climate_resources/24/graphic-the-relentless-rise-of-carbon-dioxide/) that scientists predict will cause a 2° C rise in temperature (https://sustainabilityadvantage.com/2014/01/07/co2-why-450-ppm-is-dangerous-and-350-ppm-is-safe/) we are already seeing disastrous effects to our weather, melting of icecaps and glaciers, and even high temperatures in regions of permafrost. This instability suggests 400 ppm CO2 is already too high; the only way to reduce it is with negative carbon footprints, through growing more trees or capturing carbon in other non-organic structures (such as converting it back to oil (https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/07/carbon-engineering-and-harvard-find-way-to-convert-co2-to-gasoline.html) and storing it underground).
we do need to go negative carbon,
we don’t want to just stop climate change, we want to reverse it to the point it began,
that’s why I advocate everything possible, then plant a trillion trees abroad too!
Going below zero would imply removing more carbon than we use and repairing the damage rather than just halting the decline; this can be achieved through things such as extensive tree- planting, re-wilding and the like.
OK, noted
On energy efficient homes, power generation etc – District Heating. Commonweal have a recent paper on the subject: https://commonweal.scot/policy-library/just-warmth
On Transport we need an integrated policy to provide, inter alia: sustainable transport solutions based on cycling & walking (which will require the re-design of of many roads and public spaces); efficient, cheap, comfortable, convenient local public transport for all, wherever they live and whatever their economic circumstances (reducing the need for private vehicles); policies to reduce the number of journeys, transfer goods to rail and water, reduce air travel; cease most new road building and spend on repairing and reforming existing roads to enable sustainable travel.
Food & agriculture: improve food security towards 100%; convert to certified Organic methods (thereby eliminating many of the problems of industrial agriculture); reduce air-miles and food-miles and focus on eating “locally and in season” (what’s wrong with brussel sprouts or kale?); develop electric and/or hydrogen powered farm machinery; develop policies to reduce food waste from field to plate; eliminate non-biodegradable or compostable packaging; develop policies to eliminate food poverty so that all sectors of society can afford the best food.
Health: develop a service to prevent ill-health arising in the first place.
Thanks, although most of these are policies rather than principles, but noted
It would be wonderful to see this in action.
It would transform the UK and other modern countries.
One point though, the “living wage “ is not high enough to live on, I don’t support it, it’s a disgrace that people call £6.15 or £7.70 or £8.21 an hour a living wage when it’s plain to see that you cannot live on it unless you have someone else or something else to subsidise your housing costs transport to work costs food energy bills clothing etc etc.
It’s great to save the planet with a green deal but you will only do it properly if the actual people who are going to do the actual hard graft get paid properly which means paying everyone of voting age , 18yrs and over , a wage that allows them to pay their way in life , a minimum to pay their rent food transport clothing energy which is certainly not £8.21 an hour.
We see people on huge salaries getting pay rises that are higher than the £8.21 a week
We commonly see people getting work pensions at the end of their working life that are 3 or 5 or 10 times the living wage and the taxpayer pays into these high salaried increases and high pensions with contributions based on %.
Ten% of £8.21 is tiny,
Ten% of sixty thousand or three hundred thousand is huge
The percentage calculation formula is a scam for the rich it has to end
The green deal will only work if the living wage is truly something you can live on otherwise the large number of people expected to build it will not be on board the idea they will too busy with what are to them higher priorities such as just getting bye, paying the bills.
I agree – but I was rather assuming that. Thanks for pointing it out though. I expect to come back to these comments
I presume Richard was referring to the true Living Wage, which is defined by the Living Wage Foundation with calculations performed by the Resolution Foundation overseen by the Living Wage Commission.
First, you are right that the incorrectly-named National Living Wage is not enough to live off. Osborne designed it to be up to 60% of median average wages, which happens to be the relative poverty line, so everyone on minimum wage is destined to live in poverty. Secondly, it only applies to over 25s, as if the cost of living – rising inflation and rent increases greater than inflation – only affect the over 25s!
So, let’s compare current minimum wages with the real Living Wage:
MW 18-20: £6.50
MW 21-24: £7.70
NLW (MW 25+): £8.21
UK LW: £9.00
London LW:10.55
Minimum wages change every April, the Living Wage is set at the end of October or beginning of November, each year.
So there is a vast difference between minimum wages, but the most striking difference is how much greater the real Living Wage is than the government’s wages. This is due to the way the wages are calculated. The minimum wages (below 25) are set by the Low Pay Commission according to what they think the economy can afford (ie, biased towards employers, not employee needs). The NLW, as mentioned, is a proportion of the median average full-time salary in the UK (currently around £30k); it was initially set at 55% with the aim to gradually increase to 60% by 2020. Assuming a 40-hour working week the current NLW is only 57% of median salary, which means next year it should jump to at least £8.65! But this is much smaller than the current real Living Wage. It is woefully inadequate since it is based on median incomes whose growth has stagnated in real-terms for over a decade, resulting in those receiving an average salary actually getting 3% less than they did in 2008 (IFS).
Instead of guessing if the economy can bear the extra cost of paying employees in line with inflation, the Living Wage Foundation uses the cost of living calculations made by the Centre for Policy Research at Loughborough: the Minimum Income Standard. And because it’s based on the real cost of living it doesn’t stagnate like actual wages, and the NLW, or get depressed by government quangos working to make employers rich. However, there is a limit to annual increases of CPI + 3% if the actual increase in the cost of living (often poorly measured by inflation indices like CPI and RPI) is very high. Hence why the real Living Wage is £9 outside London and £10.50 within, whereas the NLW is just over £8. The other thing to note is that the real Living Wage has a higher rate for London, because of the higher cost of living (due to housing, transport and childcare) in London. Of course in reality every region has a slightly different cost of living, the Southeast would be higher than the Northeast, for example, and Northern Ireland greater than the West Midlands, or Scotland greater than the Northwest due to it’s lower more rural population. And the cost of living varies whether you are single renting your own flat, or married with two kids, or a single-parent with children, or retired without a mortgage. The Living Wage is calculated considering all the typical household makeups, and costs across the country, and performs a weighted average to come up with the new wage. It’s not perfect but it’s much better than the government’s methodology because it puts the employees needs above the employers greed.
Thirdly, the real Living Wage takes government benefits into account. The government’s own minimum wages do not. So you get Tory chancellors boasting about how they’ve lifted 2 million out of poverty with the NLW, only to see this increase in minimum wage undermined by cuts in housing benefits and freezes in benefit rates. Such shenanigans results in the IFS and Resolution Foundation claiming that Hammond’s tax cut announced in 2018 only helps the rich, because for the poorest who rely on benefits it is neutralise by benefits cuts.
I was presuming a real living wage
I apologise for any ambiguity
Terry callachan says:
“One point though, the “living wage “ is not high enough to live on,….”
Then it’s NOT a living wage. What is needed is a living wage. And this principle needs to be extended into the area of the benefits system where any prolonged necessity for benefit support grinds people gradually into destitution and does damage to the local economy at the same time particularly in periods of high real unemployment such as this.
When I say living wage I mean living wage
I think that the need to unpick the unequal distribution of economic output (and therefore jobs and opportunities and wealth) across the nation needs to highlighted a bit more, otherwise this is a great start.
Thanks
Good list.
Although you imply it – I would make Circular Economy (as per Ellen MacArthur etc) more apparent – I particularly like the phrase “Sustainable Circularity”.
Perhaps something around Land Use / Ownership ? as per the report that came out from George Monbiot et al this week.
Thanks
Good ones
Should add to your list scrapping all these steam trains you enjoy playing with. Emissions with no purpose
Wow, you trolls are having a good time, aren’t you?
But loet’s just deal with that. No purpose? Just think about this. I have contributed some carbon. By customising these trains, I agree. But suppose I’d gone abroad by plane? What then? I actually think local tourism will have a majo9r role in the Green New Deal, and has a major carbon saving component to it
But why bother thinking about that when you can just be rude?
Bullet point two needs attention.
Possibly:
To protect natural habitats and foster biodiversity
I have amended once….will look again
Written by the man who did this:
It was pretty wet in Aberystwyth this morning. So, with plenty to read and a couple of computers in tow I caught the train to Pwllheli just to have a cup of tea. More than six hours of train ride for £8.50 — and amazing views.
6 hours on a diesel train for a cup of tea — to save the planet… Jesus what a hypocrite you are
Have you thought what my marginal contribution to carbon emissions was doing that trip? Tiny, I’d suggest, given that the train was going to run anyway, and was as I noted, busy.
But you didn’t think about the fact that I may well have had one of the lowest carbon usage days out possible before being rude, did you?
“ the train was going to run anyway”..
So i presume you won’t criticise anyone boarding a flight, same argument applies
I know you are aware of how crass that comparison is
But let me put it another way. What is your problem with one of the most carbon efficient forms of local transport? Can you explain?
Following that logic there are no marginal carbon emissions from long haul flights as they would be operating anyway.
So you are suggesting local transport is now a luxury? Can you explain why?
No, I am saying that steam trains are a luxury.
I assume you oppose coal fired power stations? So why is it acceptable to travel using coal fired trains?
Do you have any comprehension of the scales of the issues you are talking about?
[…] Read here […]
Thank you, Richard Murphy, and all who have written comments here.
AT LAST ‘The Green New Deal’ is seriously being looked at.
What disturbs me, is that we are mired in what I consider ‘old politics’. I suppose, I would describe myself as ‘Green’, having voted this way for a decade, and a social democrat.
I am appalled at how there is such a polarisation in political parties; that if all parties could see that we need to move toward what is an absolute imperative (for the very survival of the human race with climate change happening) toward a common denominator.
That we need to see living from an ethical standpoint as the underpinning of policy. This includes fairness; not necessarily under the banner of ‘socialism’, which alienates so many, with connotations of the past and how this is viewed. That talking of a mixed economy would relax this fear for many in business. To do this, and bring all closer together; as we did as a nation within a war situation to fight the common enemy of Fascism in the 1940s; because this is us heading toward war as a world – a climate war. To continue the analogy we are at the stage of the lead up to WWII. 1939. We must act now!
Prepare for this war to save the planet to be habitable: become ETHICAL in our dealings, at home, abroad; and all policies be written from this basis.
Such thinking underpins the book I am now working on
So, thanks!
Hi Richard,
A good list.
I appreciate that is UK-focused, but perhaps policies to reduce air travel should be included. A trans-national issue is the cost of long-distance rail travel in Europe. It would be helpful if the cost of such travel could be reduced so that it was competitive with flying.
Thanks,
Neil
That is covered generically
The detail will spell that out as a policy consequence
The first aim/objective “A net zero carbon economy” which is based on the Green New Deal’s explicit non-nuclear 100% renewables policy in the UK is in practice not possible to achieve. Here’s how I have reached this conclusion.
The Green New Deal is based upon the “Zero Carbon Britain: Rethinking the Future” report produced by Centre Alternative Technology in 2013. It claims a non nuclear power 100% renewable future is possible.
ZCB assumes, for example that bioengineering will double yields from biomass cultivation grown on circa 13% of UK land, will provide circa 237TWh/year = 33,000Km2 of the circa 250,000Km2 of land in the UK, split between farm 57%, natural 35%, green urban 3%, and built on 6% (via the BBC based on 2017 Corine data).
237 TWh/year is only 13.5% of ZCB estimate for the UKs total energy demand in 2013 of 1,750 TWh/year. Wikipedia 2014 data is 28% higher at 2249 TWh/year.
All renewables have output fluctuations from nothing to too much on scales of hours, days & seasons, thus need vast hydro storage supply infrastructure (an order of magnitude or more than now i.e. Dinorwig) or idiotically expensive batteries doing very little other than rotting away capital & valuable energy intensive to mine and manufacture materials, to cover the not infrequent 6+ day lulls in wind and solar availability in one the darkest country in the world.
http://euanmearns.com/open-energy-4-renewable-energy-versus-nuclear-dispelling-the-myths/
ZCB admits “the total amount of [hydro] energy that can be stored is small. The UK consumes far more than 1,000 GWh of energy on a single cold winter day. The UK’s largest pumped storage station, Dinorwig in North Wales, can only store around 10 GWh of electricity.” p66 Zero Carbon Britain.
The average power per unit land area of the solar photovoltaic farm: the Solarpark in Mühlhausen, Bavaria is circa 5 W/m2 (6.3 MW peak).
https://withouthotair.com/c6/page_41.shtml
The average raw power of sunshine per square metre of south-facing roof in Britain is roughly 110 W/m2, and the average raw power of sunshine per square metre of flat ground is roughly 100 W/m2.
https://withouthotair.com/c6/page_38.shtml
Solarpark is thus circa 5% efficient.
If we covered 5% of the UK with 10%-efficient panels, we’d have 10% × 100 W/m2 (average sunlight in UK / m2) x (say) 200 m2 per person ≈ 50 kWh/day/person. The EU average consumption of energy (all types) is 125kWh/day/person.
To replace all UK energy (at 125kWh/day/person) with solar the UK would need ((125/50)* 200m2* 60,000,000) [UK population] Km2 = 30,000kM2 — without any gaps between the plants.
Even if the £ expenditure was bearable, and we ignore ZCB’s significant under estimates of energy demand, the prospects of overcoming the huge political obstacles to forcing at least 13% of UK land be turned over to biomass cultivation, plus another 15% or so with solar cells is hard to see using between a quarter and a third of UK land for 100% renewables as a sensible proposal, even if we ignore storage issues, and include wind, which I haven’t as the land use and £ picture gets no better, it gets worse.
The £ expense alone would be enough to build a nuclear fleet that could power far more than the entire UK for 100s of years – i.e the UK could be a net base load exporter to the EU – and we wouldn’t even need to mine any uranium or industrialise the countryside, nor forcing everyone to go vegan and live in or next to an industrial park. For where else but grazing meat stock & feed farm land are we going to put 30,000Km2 minimum of solar panels and whatever hydro storage needed, and another 30,000Km2 to 60,000Km2 (bioengineering dependant) for biofuel?
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/prism-project-a-proposal-for-the-uks-problem-plutonium/
Proposals of a new ingenious energy intensive CO2 capture process, using hydrogen plus the Fischer Tropsch process advocated by Derek Chandler (above) fail to answer the question, where’s the energy for this going to come from?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_process
“Only four per cent of all hydrogen produced worldwide are the result of water electrolysis. As the electrodes used in the process are not efficient enough, large-scale application is not profitable. “To date, hydrogen has been mainly obtained from fossil fuels, with large CO2 volumes being released in the process,”
https://phys.org/news/2016-03-efficiency-electrolysis.html
I am glad you know the GND is based on that report
I did not
I hope the rest of your work is better researched
I did my research Richard, something I’ve been urging you to also do, but which you refuse, appealing to the expert fallacy. Now you claim / admit you are ignorant of what your own organisation is promoting, I quote:
“A National Plan for the UK From Austerity to the Age of the Green New Deal The fifth anniversary report of the Green New Deal Group.
“There are many authoritative sustainable energy scenarios for the UK that have been developed by a range of actors, including the Committee on Climate Change, research groups, business groups, and NGOs. The potential for the UK to go carbon free has most recently been extensively detailed by the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) in the report: ‘Zero Carbon Britain: Rethinking the Future’ from which much of the following is drawn.
[footnote] 43 Allen, P, Blake, L, Harper, P, Hooker-Stroud, A, James, P and Kellner, T (2013) Zero Carbon Britain: Rethinking the Future, (Machynlleth: Centre for Alternative Technology): Available online at: http://www.zerocarbonbritain.com/images/pdfs/ZCBrtflo-res.pdf
Richard, this is not about you or me: its about an appeal to REASON (e.g. see Pinker Enlightenment Now). For example if we are to rely on the expert fallacy, the not cherry picking what scientist tell us, since most scientist tell us both that anthropomorphic CO2 is real and can only be tackled by nuclear energy.
Regards
In other words it is not just based on what you claim
And nothing you say will persuade me
You are wasting your time here
There’s an elephant in the room – population. England is near the top of the density tables in Europe and is projected to continue growing. Even when population was only a few million we failed to manage the environment sustainably – hence the UK is now one of the least forested countries in Europe, for example.
I don’t see how we can discuss sustainability and Green-ness without considering population and having a mature debate about it. There are a few brave people who have written about their personal decisions on this, and of course have received a lot of abuse, but it cannot be ignored. If, as I believe, we are facing an armageddon (“The Uninhabitable Earth” spells out just how bad it is, and will be) then an ever increasing world population means that to mitigate the worst effects we will be constantly running as fast as we can just to stand still.
Birth control is in my version of the GND