A Green New Deal is what post-Brexit Britain needs | Rethinking Poverty

A Green New Deal is what post-Brexit Britain needs

Posted on 11 Apr 2019   Categories: Climate crisis, Climate justice, News, Reports Related Tags:  ,

Following their meeting on Good Green Jobs For All on 1 April, which Rethinking Poverty reported on, the New Economics Foundation last week launched their new pamphlet on why a UK Green New Deal is what post-Brexit Britain needs. Originally developed a decade ago, the concept of a Green New Deal was picked up again last year by US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and given new urgency in the wake of student protests against climate change, inspired by 16-year-old Greta Thunberg.

According to the pamphlet, a Green New Deal is a recognition that

‘to tackle climate change, we must transform the economy and we should do this in a way that works for the majority of people: environmental justice working in tandem with social justice.’

The economic programme that underpins efforts to reduce carbon emissions must also respond to ‘the Brexit politics of exclusion, the alienation of post-industrial places, the malaise in manufacturing; the housing crisis; poor quality, insecure work; the decline of public services; macroeconomic stagnation’. A Green New Deal as proposed by NEF would create thousands of new, decent jobs; help households save money by insulating homes and developing public transport networks; and house people affordably through building millions of zero-carbon homes.

The Green New Deal recognises that the UK ‘suffers from an inequality of place’ and also that ‘many of those places branded “left behind” are still reliant on carbon intensive and environmentally harmful forms of economic production’. In the transition to a low-carbon, environmentally sustainable economy, the Green New Deal pledges to focus resources and support on the places most likely to be negatively affected by bringing together ‘central government, local authorities, trade unions, workers, community representatives and businesses’.

Read the full pamphlet here.

Posted on 11 Apr 2019   Categories: Climate crisis, Climate justice, News, Reports Related Tags:  ,

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