{"id":50291,"date":"2020-05-30T13:12:38","date_gmt":"2020-05-30T12:12:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=50291"},"modified":"2020-05-30T13:12:38","modified_gmt":"2020-05-30T12:12:38","slug":"if-now-isnt-the-time-for-a-green-new-deal-why-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2020\/05\/30\/if-now-isnt-the-time-for-a-green-new-deal-why-not\/","title":{"rendered":"If now isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the time for a Green New deal, why not?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Larry Elliott wrote a piece on the Green New Deal in the Guardian on Thursday<\/a>, when I missed it, so I will make up for that by posting it now. I seem to recall a conversation with him along the lines of this piece, not that long ago. We are co-authors of the Green New Deal. As he said:<\/p>\n

Timing matters. Early 2020 saw an economic collapse the likes of which have not been seen in living memory. Growth has collapsed, unemployment has soared, poverty has increased.<\/p>\n

Yet in different circumstances the past few months would have been dominated by calls for countries to do more to cut carbon emissions. As 2019 drew to an end, everybody from the managing director of the\u00a0International Monetary Fund<\/a>\u00a0to the\u00a0governor of the Bank of England<\/a>\u00a0was warning of the threat of global heating.<\/p>\n

A year of floods, hurricanes and bush fires had made a strong case for action to make economies more sustainable. What was lacking was a profound shock that would make change possible. Now we\u2019ve had one.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Precisely so. And as he out it:<\/p>\n

Governments are creating, borrowing and spending money like never before in peacetime, in an attempt to mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. They have the opportunity to reshape their economies in a way that would be consistent with preventing catastrophic increases in global temperatures.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n