I share this post from the Green New Deal Group: I am a co-author of the report to which it refers:
Published to coincide with the launch of the Green New Deal Bill, set down by MPs Caroline Lucas and Clive Lewis, this new report by the Green New Deal Group sets out what a Green New Deal will look like, explains what is in the Bill, formally known as the Decarbonisation and Economic Strategy Bill, and how it could transform all our lives for the better.
The Green New Deal: A Bill to Make it Happen
Campaigns for a Green New Deal are taking off around the world: sunrise movement in the United States, the pact for a Green New Deal in Canada, the Green New Deal for Europe initiative, and the Green MEPs who have been arguing for a Green New Deal for almost a decade. Labour for a Green New Deal have campaigned to put the Green New Deal front and centre of Labour Party policy and a new Green New Deal UK movement launches this week. The Green New Deal has been Green Party policy since 2008 and is undergoing a revival today.
In the UK, think tanks, normally characterised by the desire to find unique solutions are uniting around the call for a Green New Deal. Common Wealth published their comprehensive Roadmap for a Green New Deal, IPPR are publishing a series of essays with WWF and are hosting the Commission on Environmental Justice and the New Economics Foundation, publishers of our 2008 proposal for a Green New Deal have published reports on the changes needed to our finance system.
All this chimes with what people across the UK are increasingly saying they want to see. Repeated opinion polls confirm just how important action on climate change is to the British public. Two-thirds of people in the UK recognise there is a climate emergency. Seventy-six per cent say that they would cast their vote differently to protect the planet. Six out of ten adults in the UK believe that the government is not doing enough on climate change. They are right. Where the climate is concerned, winning slowly is the same as losing. We must act now. The climate will not wait. Neither can nor should we accept the corrosive inequality that is tearing society apart. That can't wait either.
There is no shortage of expertise that could help draw up the plan for rapid transition: numerous environmental groups and policy experts from across the political parties have drawn up reports detailing how the UK could rapidly decarbonise in a way that also answers pressing social challenges. The UK parliament, Scottish and Welsh governments and councils across the UK have all declared climate emergencies. In terms of practical action, many of our towns and cities have been leading the way and there are a plethora of examples we can learn from around the world.
The detail will change as the Green New Deal develops, and with contributions from people from all walks of life, particularly those on the front line of change. It is the start, not the end, of a conversation, and it is a conversation we will all need to be part of.
Workers want to work in the economy of the future but need assurances that the jobs created will be good, secure, unionised jobs. Businesses want to move into new, green sectors, and investors are keen to support the transformation, but both need the confidence that can only be provided by government. The skills, ambition and potential of people across the UK knows no bounds. As we have before, we can come together to create a society that is better for all of us — but we will need bold action from government to make that possible. The Decarbonisation and Economic Strategy Bill sets out what government needs to do to unleash that potential.
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Excellent.
Does this mean I can look forward to a highly paid job doing tree-hugging? that would be my dream job, going around being nice to trees. Well,,, except for jaggy trees, hawthorns will have to be appreciated at a distance, and spruce. Okay, maybe I don’t deserve to get paid much for it. I was reading about Roman history and an interesting aside about archaeological evidence was that it is now thought that the biggest deforestation of Scotland actually happened a lot earlier than thought – in the early Iron Age, so, approx. 2000BC sort of era. This knowledge has had an effect on my thinking – from imagining an entirely forested Scotland with people just squeezed in amongst the trees, I have decided the occasional field and town is okay. I believe Hawthorn is a native tree, unfortunately, so I also don’t think it has to be all native trees either.
On a more serious note, I hope the GND includes increased funding for ecology – we don’t know really how all our environmental systems work, and this is a difficult task because there are so many systems at play, and should be a priority research area – and I would like to give an additional plug for mycological ecology, a seriously underfunded field, that could play an important part in enabling the growing of healthy crops without the use of fertilisers/pesticides/fungicides. Fungi often, or could, play an important role in all kinds of environmental systems, as well as disease, but so little is understood. Just as it has been found that the Oyster Mushroom can absorb toxic metals and used as a part of cleaning up our mess (trials are happening), there is the potential for using fungi to create a true homeostatic environment while still allowing us to live comfortably. I can recommend ‘The Kingdom of Fungi’ by Jens Petersen for a broad overview, lots of beautiful pictures and just a wee bit of writing.
I promise you that biodiversity is on the agenda
Well, it was the ‘cyclic economy’- I think it is called now (rather than waste management) – that I was thinking of, rather than biodiversity (which is just making sure everything doesn’t die from our actions) – it perhaps could be central to any economic structure to try and achieve no waste (by-products of one industry should be utilised in another and so on) and ways of reducing harmful waste, by making use of natural systems – so a requirement for increased funding in classically underfunded areas should be considered as well? And natural systems produce CO2 as well (rotting vegetation e.g.) – so it is not straightforward. I just see it as an area where initial investment might be large, but the long term rewards will be beneficial and cost little.
I can’t help noting the composition of the “expert panel” that comprise the GND that wrote the report, not the MPs that have endorsed it. The background experts comprise Larry Elliott, Colin Hines, Jeremy Leggett, Caroline Lucas, Richard Murphy, Ann Pettifor, Charles Secrett, Andrew Simms, and Geoff Tily
There should be widespread concern that here there is a majority of white economists. Even more troubling, there is no ethnic minority representation on the “expert panel” and no people with lived experience of inequality. The number of disciplines represented is also small, although the impact of rising CO2 levels goes far beyond economics.
Fair points
But the group just started a a Bunn of people who knew each other – that it is has endured is the surprise
And so there are limitations that a recruitment process may not have tolerated
Accepted
I note the Bill calls for ‘net’ United Kingdom carbon emissions to be zero.
Is ‘net’ there for wriggle room, allowing the possibility of reaching the target while benefiting from overseas carbon emissions? What does ‘net’ add. Shouldn’t we just drop ‘net’?
Net means some people / organisations may be emitters
Others must the compendate
It does not mean what you suggest
“Overseas” surely is a problem. Has it been addressed. We have outsourced so much manufacturing, and import shed loads of stuff from far off, and much of our waste, including toxic waste, has been sent overseas.
Are there reliable estimates of how this impacts our environmental footprint? I hae ma doots. I’ve asked Brittany Ferries what the carbon footprint is of a ferry trip to Spain. They don’t have this at their fingertips, but will get back to me. I’m not hopeful. I suspect this is the case with a lot of things – they/we just don’t know.
Of course there are doubts about the data: until we require that data be properly collected that will remain