Green New Deal: Is the UK heading for an environmental revolution?

Who supports a Green New Deal?

The principle underscoring the proposal is supported by a raft of environmental organisations and campaigners, such as Greenpeace, Extinction Rebellion and 350.org.

In the UK, the campaign group Labour for a Green New Deal launched in 2019. Later that year, at the party conference, Labour backed the target of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2030.

The blueprint played a big part in Labour’s 2019 manifesto under ex-leader Jeremy Corbyn. “Our Green New Deal aims to achieve the substantial majority of our emissions reductions by 2030 in a way that is evidence-based, just and that delivers an economy that serves the interests of the many, not the few,” it read.

Labour’s left flank expressed concern that current leader Keir Starmer might abandon the Corbyn-era policy. But this August, Starmer re-committed to the pledge. “It is time for a Green New Deal,” he said.

Starmer added: “Tackling the climate crisis must be at the heart of everything we do. We are at a critical moment.”

Campaigners welcomed the shift but still want Starmer to clarify – it’s unclear if the 2030 target remains – and go further.

Will a Green New Deal pass parliament?

Lucas and Labour backbencher Clive Lewis, co-chair of the APPG, will introduce a Green New Deal private members bill to parliament this autumn.

The plan is to lobby MPs to “put their money where their mouth is” and support the proposal.

Lucas is working with organisations like Green New Deal UK, a non-profit that organises for climate justice, to connect the grassroots with the legislative campaigns, and has joined the Global Alliance for a Green New Deal, including politicians such as US Representative Ilhan Omar.

Lucas said the deal rests on three principles: going beyond green-driven industrial growth to create a new economy in which the natural world can flourish; the marrying of environmental and social justice; and building an international movement that doesn’t rely on exploitation of the global south.

But while the bill will generate coverage, drive up awareness and potentially influence the government’s own policies, the private members bill itself looks unlikely to pass.

“You could say a Conservative government is not going to agree with everything in this bill,” Lucas told The Big Issue. “But if we’ve learned anything from the history of the pandemic so far, it’s that when political leaders recognise the size of an emergency they can act far more radically than they had ever previously imagined.”

What is Boris Johnson’s position on a Green New Deal?

While Johnson’s government does not support the idea of a Green New Deal itself, it claims it does take climate change seriously.

The UK government has promised to boost the number of green jobs as part of its “Ten Point Plan” to deliver a “Green Industrial Revolution” in the UK. That includes a £12 billion investment to support up to 250,000 green jobs. A Green Jobs Taskforce was set up in November 2020 to work on creating the new roles.

“We long ago proved that green and growth can go hand-in-hand. So let us meet the most enduring threat to our planet with one of the most innovative and ambitious programmes of job-creation we have known,” Johnson said announcing the plan.

In August the prime minister’s climate change spokesperson, Allegra Stratton, conceded that the government’s target of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 is “too far away.”

Critics say Johnson must do more and go faster.

Starmer attacked the Conservatives in August for overseeing a 75,000 fall in green jobs between 2014 and 2019, citing figures from the Office for National Statistics. “Nobody here in the UK can afford for this issue to be yet another example of Boris Johnson bluster. We need real action, now,” Starmer said.

Climate campaigners say Johnson is only paying lip service to the issue, letting fossil fuel producers and large emitting companies off the hook.

“We’re now in an era of climate delay-ism as well as climate denialism, and that’s really dangerous,” Hannah Martin, co-executive director of Green New Deal UK, and an organiser with its campaigning arm Green New Deal Rising, told The Big Issue.

“You have a government in power that says a lot of nice words, but actually materially is still committing to new oil and gas exploitation, massive roadbuilding programs, cutting support for energy efficiency on new home building, and not committing the amount of money that’s needed,” Martin said.

That is dangerous, she added, because it “sets a precedent for other countries to follow suit and get away with empty promises and greenwashing.”

But Martin is hopeful young people – the “Green New Deal generation” – can win the fight for a better future, with poling from Savanta ComRes showing 71 per cent of adults are concerned about the impact of global warming on the next generation.

Delayers and deniers are “on the wrong side of history,” Martin said.