I have long argued for a Green New Deal. So, of course, I welcome this news in The Guardian yesterday:
The UK needs to invest an additional £30bn a year in shovel-ready green projects to create jobs, energise the post-lockdown economy and put the country back on track to achieve its climate targets, a new cross-party commission recommends.
In the most detailed blueprint to date for a green recovery from Covid-19, it also advises the government to make an initial down payment of £5bn into a national “just transition fund” that would support the regions likely to be worst affected by the shift away from fossil fuels.
The 96-page dossier was unveiled on Wednesday by the environmental justice commission, which is composed of MPs, business executives, union leaders, climate activists and members of the Institute for Public Policy Research.
But, and I have to say this, when the need is for at least £100 billion a year that can only be the start.
That is most especially true when funding £100 billion a year will not be hard.
And that is also true when business should support this. As the FT noted this morning:
Clean power stocks have weathered the coronavirus crisis better than their peers in oil and gas, new research has shown, as the oil price shock and pandemic shift the landscape for energy investing.
US clean power stocks rose 2.2 per cent in the first four months of the year, while their fossil fuel peers fell 40.5 per cent, according to a study by Imperial College London and the International Energy Agency. The S&P 500 fell 9.4 per cent during the same period.
The time for the Green New Deal has come. Politicians need to be bold in saying so. If I have a criticism of this report it is that it is just not bold enough, and now that we face the most massive economic crisis boldness is what we need.
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Neither politicians nor the media want to talk about the climate. With such widespread ignorance, political action of significance seems impossible. Rebecca Willis (formerly Green Alliance) reported in the clearest terms last week: “ ‘I don’t want to be seen as a zealot’: what MPs really think about the climate crisis.” (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/21/i-dont-want-to-be-seen-as-a-zealot-what-mps-really-think-about-the-climate-crisis?utm_campaign=Carbon%20Brief%20Daily%20Briefing&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Revue%20newsletter)
People know about carbon dioxide. They/We do NOT know that a SECOND GLOBAL HEATING MECHANISM has kicked in big time: not long ago, there was a sufficient area of white ice bouncing the sun’s heat back into space. No longer! Too much has melted from the Arctic, Antarctic, Greenland, the Hymalayas, Alps, Rockies and Andes. Massive intervention to cut CO2 and methane emissions etc might still keep the planet habitable for humans but informing politicians, journalists is paramount. Greta and her teenage supporters might just convince adults of their folly.
Unfortunately the Johnson government have very close links with the oil industry, with many advisors from the industry embedded, and BoJo himself having only recently acknowledged manmade climate change.
Before COVID-19 I would have argued (and did argue) that the main challenge for mitigating climate change was not money, but resources, i.e. labour and materials. Unemployment was so low that throwing money at scarce resources would have Just resulted in inflation. There might have been some underemployment (or more of what might be termed mis-employment) in the labour force that could be redirected towards greening and decarbonising. It certainly looks as if there will be no shortage now, although materials and their supply chains will remain a non-trivial issue..
The challenge now is twofold:
1. Convincing this government that market forces will not solve the problem and that large-scale State intervention is essential (akin to Roosevelt’s ‘directed capitalism’).
2. Preparing the workforce for what will be required.
Both imply having a comprehensive and coherent plan to work to. At the moment I only observe piecemeal activity. Sad to say, but this also applied to Labour’s GND offered to us last December. This amounted to little more than a plan for a plan, but at least demonstrated intention.