Act Now: A Green New Deal
Our society needs to transition to a more sustainable mode: lower carbon emissions, less air and water pollution, more liveable cities and regeneration of nature. To achieve these goals requires a linked set of reforms that touch every area of policy discussed in this book. Government investment needs to be reorganised, with improving sustainability as a central criterion. Private investment in green projects must be leveraged through tax incentives. New oil and gas licences must end, with a quadruple lock for workers whose industries are affected. The government needs to invest a minimum of £28 billion annually in decarbonising and expanding the energy supply and reducing energy expenditure and emissions. Progressively higher standards are needed to protect our air and water and make sure developments are planned around walking, cycling and public transport. To facilitate this, social control over energy, water and transport networks needs to be reasserted and devolved to community level, in line with the community wealth principle. Public investment in the countryside needs to be directed to regenerating nature rather than intensifying production, and community nature regeneration projects should be encouraged. Large areas of our seas need to be set aside for nature. These are not issues affecting only other species – we humans cannot survive without these measures.
The Green New Deal is our response to the great challenge of our age. But the challenge of our age is also the opportunity of our age. The Green New Deal is an exciting, inspirational project for society that people can take pride in, that can improve their wellbeing, that can row back the rise of inequality, and that can reconnect people to the idea that democracy and their state can serve them.
Recommendations
- Reorganise public investment so that improving sustainability is a central goal for all infrastructure projects.
- Invest at least £28 billion a year in decarbonising the energy supply and reducing energy expenditure.
- Create a National Investment Bank out of the UK Infrastructure Bank and use the tax system to incentivise pension funds to invest in green projects.
- Introduce and progressively increase a carbon tax to generate funds for investment, and guide the development of economy towards lower-carbon solutions.
- End new licences for fossil fuel projects while protecting workers currently in carbon-intensive industries through a Quadruple Lock that includes:
- A transition job guarantee that all those whose jobs are lost to decarbonisation are employed at the same or higher salary, at the same or higher level of seniority, within 50 miles of their current place of work.
- Strategic investment in sites of transition, with publicly owned energy generation and infrastructure located in areas like North East Scotland which hold significant numbers of jobs threatened by decarbonisation.
- An education and skills guarantee, with bespoke co-produced vocational training and Higher Apprenticeships to meet the needs of the expanded sector and retrain workers during the transition.
- An enterprise safety net, making full use of affected workers’ highly transferrable skills and abilities that can be deployed in any number of different roles and professions and can be the basis for new enterprises that transform our communities.
- Invest in a National Building Service to advance a programme of retrofitting and improvement of the housing stock, including by making installation of heat pumps, solar panels and other sustainable investments mandatory in all new buildings, including by training workers
- Introduce tougher regulation and enforcement of regulations related to pollution of water and air.
- Divert public support away from intensive agriculture and towards the regeneration of nature in the countryside, and introduce marine protected areas.
- Place the costs of disposal and waste onto the producers of projects, and encourage reuse, repair and recycling by introducing Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)