News
Cross-party letter urges Chancellor to use budget to show climate leadership ahead of UN climate summit
A cross-party letter, signed by MPs and peers from the Green Party, Labour Party, Liberal Democrats, the SNP and Plaid Cymru, urges the Chancellor to address the climate, ecological and social crises by investing in a Green New Deal, in order to transform almost every aspect of our economy and society. Such a programme of investment, the letter points out, would also fulfil government promises to ‘level up’ the nation.
Green New Deal budget submission 2020: Securing the future
A Green New Deal Group briefing, The Green New Deal: Securing the Future, was sent to the Chancellor ahead of the March 2020 budget, with a letter signed by MPs from all the main opposition parties. As the briefing, written by Green New Deal Group member Richard Murphy sets out, the Green New Deal Group have long argued that it is prudent for government to borrow (by issuing bonds) to invest in the transformation of our infrastructure and businesses while interest rates are low. The briefing shows how such government borrowing could be financed in a way that also creates a safe place for the nation’s pensions and savings, by making simple changes to existing tax incentives
When 14 million homes and businesses switched fuel in less than a decade
In 2019 the UK’s official advisor, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), warned that the nation’s homes were ‘unfit for the challenges of climate change’. Writing for the Rapid Transition Alliance, Green New Deal Group member Andrew Simms explores the switch from ‘town gas’ to ‘natural gas’ to see what lessons we might learn for transforming our homes with a Green New Deal to meet the challenges of climate breakdown.
The Green New Deal is all about ‘levelling up’ the UK
Writing for his Tax Research blog, Green New Deal Group member Richard Murphy welcomes the findings of the 2070 Commission report, Make No Little Plans: Acting At Scale For a Fairer and Stronger Future, and argues that the Green New Deal would enable us to decarbonise the economy at the scale and speed needed, levelling up the country in the process.
A day in the life of the Green New Deal
As Boris Johnson bolts on a few buses and cycle lanes to sweeten the pill of the vastly expensive HS2 rail project, the first phase of which is unlikely to open for over a decade, many are waking up to the need for much faster action on the climate emergency. In this piece adapted from a contribution to the report The Green New Deal: A bill to make it happen, Andrew Simms pictures a day in the life of the Green New Deal.
Sainsbury’s plan for net zero-carbon ignores all the emissions that they enable – and that’s not good enough
Richard Murphy explores Sainsbury’s announcement that it will go carbon neutral by 2040, and finds a hole in the accounts. “Sainsbury’s cannot say they will be carbon neutral by simply ignoring the consequences of its own actions. Doing so is, in fact, is a caricature of the denial implicit in the whole climate crisis to date, where it has always been pretended that emissions are an externality and someone else’s problem. They’re not.”
Investment in the Green New Deal could revitalise democracy
A massive green investment programme in energy-efficiency would generate jobs in every constituency and result in “democracy in action”, since it would require the involvement of every household and local community, with the practical perks of improved living conditions and reduced bills. Since the general public lack trust or optimism that politicians can really improve people’s lives, this approach should garner all-party support. says Colin Hines in a letter to the Guardian.
From emergency declarations to practical action
Across the world, national and local governments are declaring a climate emergency on the back of dire warnings from UN scientists about the need for urgent and far-reaching action.
Green New Deal Group Member and coordinator of the Rapid Transition Alliance, Andrew Simms, explores the initiatives around the world that are setting our to turn declarations into action.
The Case for the Green New Deal by Ann Pettifor; On Fire by Naomi Klein – review
Writing in the Guardian, journalist Zoe Williams reviews Ann Pettifor’s The Case for the Green New Deal.
“Pettifor delivers a sober, technical but readable account of the framework, as she – among a handful of economists and/or environmentalists, including Richard Murphy (the main architect of Corbyn’s 2015 programme), Larry Elliott (the Guardian’s economics editor) and Jeremy Leggett (solar entrepreneur) laid it out more than a decade ago.”
Funding energy efficiency needs to become a central climate policy for a successful COP in Glasgow
Writing for Green Alliance, Colin Hines makes the case that an ambitious ’30 by 30′ programme to make the UK’s homes and other buildings energy efficient could be key to success at the 2020 Climate Change talks, hosted by the UK in Glasgow in November. Improving living conditions by making all homes and buildings energy efficient, eventually reducing the UK’s carbon emissions by up to 40 per cent, should be the target trumpeted at the Glasgow climate talks as the host country’s major contribution to addressing the climate emergency.
Cross-party letter urges Chancellor to use budget to show climate leadership ahead of UN climate summit
A cross-party letter, signed by MPs and peers from the Green Party, Labour Party, Liberal Democrats, the SNP and Plaid Cymru, urges the Chancellor to address the climate, ecological and social crises by investing in a Green New Deal, in order to transform almost every aspect of our economy and society. Such a programme of investment, the letter points out, would also fulfil government promises to ‘level up’ the nation.
Green New Deal budget submission 2020: Securing the future
A Green New Deal Group briefing, The Green New Deal: Securing the Future, was sent to the Chancellor ahead of the March 2020 budget, with a letter signed by MPs from all the main opposition parties. As the briefing, written by Green New Deal Group member Richard Murphy sets out, the Green New Deal Group have long argued that it is prudent for government to borrow (by issuing bonds) to invest in the transformation of our infrastructure and businesses while interest rates are low. The briefing shows how such government borrowing could be financed in a way that also creates a safe place for the nation’s pensions and savings, by making simple changes to existing tax incentives
When 14 million homes and businesses switched fuel in less than a decade
In 2019 the UK’s official advisor, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), warned that the nation’s homes were ‘unfit for the challenges of climate change’. Writing for the Rapid Transition Alliance, Green New Deal Group member Andrew Simms explores the switch from ‘town gas’ to ‘natural gas’ to see what lessons we might learn for transforming our homes with a Green New Deal to meet the challenges of climate breakdown.
The Green New Deal is all about ‘levelling up’ the UK
Writing for his Tax Research blog, Green New Deal Group member Richard Murphy welcomes the findings of the 2070 Commission report, Make No Little Plans: Acting At Scale For a Fairer and Stronger Future, and argues that the Green New Deal would enable us to decarbonise the economy at the scale and speed needed, levelling up the country in the process.
A day in the life of the Green New Deal
As Boris Johnson bolts on a few buses and cycle lanes to sweeten the pill of the vastly expensive HS2 rail project, the first phase of which is unlikely to open for over a decade, many are waking up to the need for much faster action on the climate emergency. In this piece adapted from a contribution to the report The Green New Deal: A bill to make it happen, Andrew Simms pictures a day in the life of the Green New Deal.
Sainsbury’s plan for net zero-carbon ignores all the emissions that they enable – and that’s not good enough
Richard Murphy explores Sainsbury’s announcement that it will go carbon neutral by 2040, and finds a hole in the accounts. “Sainsbury’s cannot say they will be carbon neutral by simply ignoring the consequences of its own actions. Doing so is, in fact, is a caricature of the denial implicit in the whole climate crisis to date, where it has always been pretended that emissions are an externality and someone else’s problem. They’re not.”
Investment in the Green New Deal could revitalise democracy
A massive green investment programme in energy-efficiency would generate jobs in every constituency and result in “democracy in action”, since it would require the involvement of every household and local community, with the practical perks of improved living conditions and reduced bills. Since the general public lack trust or optimism that politicians can really improve people’s lives, this approach should garner all-party support. says Colin Hines in a letter to the Guardian.
From emergency declarations to practical action
Across the world, national and local governments are declaring a climate emergency on the back of dire warnings from UN scientists about the need for urgent and far-reaching action.
Green New Deal Group Member and coordinator of the Rapid Transition Alliance, Andrew Simms, explores the initiatives around the world that are setting our to turn declarations into action.
The Case for the Green New Deal by Ann Pettifor; On Fire by Naomi Klein – review
Writing in the Guardian, journalist Zoe Williams reviews Ann Pettifor’s The Case for the Green New Deal.
“Pettifor delivers a sober, technical but readable account of the framework, as she – among a handful of economists and/or environmentalists, including Richard Murphy (the main architect of Corbyn’s 2015 programme), Larry Elliott (the Guardian’s economics editor) and Jeremy Leggett (solar entrepreneur) laid it out more than a decade ago.”
Funding energy efficiency needs to become a central climate policy for a successful COP in Glasgow
Writing for Green Alliance, Colin Hines makes the case that an ambitious ’30 by 30′ programme to make the UK’s homes and other buildings energy efficient could be key to success at the 2020 Climate Change talks, hosted by the UK in Glasgow in November. Improving living conditions by making all homes and buildings energy efficient, eventually reducing the UK’s carbon emissions by up to 40 per cent, should be the target trumpeted at the Glasgow climate talks as the host country’s major contribution to addressing the climate emergency.