26 March 2019

Labour’s Shadow Treasury Minister Clive Lewis and Green Party MP Caroline Lucas will today table a Private Members’ Bill that would force the Government to enact a ‘Green New Deal’.

The ‘Decarbonisation and Economic Strategy Bill’ would place duties on ministers to introduce a radical 10-year strategy for public investment designed to decarbonise the economy and eradicate inequality. It would require ministers to empower communities and workers to transition from high-carbon to low and zero-carbon industries, introduce stricter environmental regulations and protect and restore natural habitats.

Caroline co-founded the UK’s Green New Deal Group 10 years ago, and US Senator Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has recently reinvigorated the idea in the US. It takes its inspiration from Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930s, which used massive investment in jobs and infrastructure to pull the US out of the Great Depression.

A Green New Deal would involve huge investment in clean energy, warm homes and affordable public transport – delivering a decent, well-paid job to everyone who wants one, and tackling climate change.

Labour members recently launched a grassroots campaign called Labour for a Green New Deal, to encourage the party to adopt a similar policy.

Today will be the first time a Bill designed to enact a Green New Deal has come before Parliament, and it is expected to gain cross-party support.

It comes in the wake of this month’s global school strikes, which saw more than 50,000 young people join protests across the UK calling for action to tackle climate breakdown.

Green Party MP Caroline Lucas said:

“Our climate and our society are in crisis – but our Government is failing to act. It is now clear that we need a bold and radical plan to fight the climate crisis at the scale that scientists say is necessary. To do that we need to transform our economy and society at the speed necessary to prevent climate breakdown. We need to do what is required of us – not simply what is seen as politically possible.

“Young people understand the scale of the economic transformation we need to secure our futures. It’s time the Government woke up to the climate emergency and the UK’s grotesque levels of inequality and enacted a Green New Deal.”

Labour’s Shadow Treasury Minister for Sustainable Economics, Clive Lewis, said:

“The physics is clear. We must cut carbon emissions by 50 per cent, within a decade, to avoid climate breakdown. As climate strikers warn us, the planet will not wait.

“This Bill sets a timetable that makes government, workers and communities the drivers of change, not the inheritors of chaos.”

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26 March 2019

Jonathan Bartley, co-leader of the Green Party, has responded to the inquest into the death of Tarek Chowdhury at Colnbrook detention centre.

Jonathan Bartley, co-leader of the Green Party, said:

“It is devastating to see deep failures in the UK’s barbaric detention system are costing people’s lives. It is a stain on our national conscience that the UK is the only country in Europe to lock people up in detention centres without a time limit. It is time for root and branch reform of our broken immigration system – starting with these brutal detention centres. The Government must commit to a 28 day time limit for detention as a first step towards ending detention for good and building a more humane, community based system.”

Notes:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/mar/25/catalogue-of-failings-led-to-death-of-gentle-man-at-detention-centre

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25 March 2019

Reacting to the survey that found that two-thirds of teachers would support banning cars near schools [1], Green Party of England and Wales peer Jenny Jones said:

“Teachers know what they’re talking about when it comes to their students. We know that air pollution stunts lung growth in children and teenagers, at a similar level to exposure to maternal smoking. [2] It’s time to take action.

“Closing the streets in front of schools at the start and end of the school day would help deliver a safer, cleaner school environment that every child deserves. We’ve seen it work in Camden [3] and Hackney [4], now it’s time to spread the idea across the country.”

ENDS

Notes

Last year Jenny Jones introduced the Clean Air Bill into the House of Lords to tackle the shocking and often illegal levels of air pollution in our towns and cities. [4]

[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/air-pollution-school-car-ban-roads-gates-drop-off-pick-up-teachers-survey-sustrans-a8837836.html

[2] http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa040610

[3] https://www.livingstreets.org.uk/what-we-do/stories/school-road-closure-in-camden

[4] http://www.eastlondonlines.co.uk/2018/02/school-streets-scheme-spreads-two-hackney-schools/

[5] https://cleanair.london/legal/clean-air-is-a-human-right/

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21 March 2019

Greens in the European Parliament have demanded that access badges of ExxonMobil lobbyists be removed. The call comes as representatives of the oil giant refuse to attend a public hearing in the European Parliament today which will, for the first time, address climate denial in the EU, and focus on the prominent role Exxon Mobil has played. When representatives of Monsanto refused to attend a similar hearing they had their access badges revoked and Greens are demanding the same action be taken against ExxonMobile.   

Currently around 220 lobbyists linked to ExxonMobil have direct access to the European Parliament through their EU badge together with many more unregistered lobbyists. This is despite the fact the corporation stands accused of funding public misinformation campaigns and slowing down political attempts to move towards progressive policies on energy. Internal company document have also revealed that the corporation has known about the realities of climate change for decades. The company helped to found and lead the Global Climate Coalition of businesses opposed to the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions and funded organizations critical of the Kyoto Protocol.

Green MEP, Molly Scott Cato, who is attending today’s hearing and will host the press conference after the event, said:

“The only seats that should be offered to representatives of ExxonMobil are the ones at the hearing which will examine this corporation’s climate wrecking activities. This is the company that has denied the science, despite knowing the damage their oil exploitation was causing; who has funded campaigns to block action on climate and now refuse to face up to their environmental crimes by attending today’s hearing.

“We cannot allow the lobbyists from such corporations free access to the corridors of the European Parliament. We must remove their badges immediately.”

“The growing momentum across the globe for youth strikes shows young people understand we are in a climate emergency. To safeguard their future, they will need to live the majority of their adult lives almost entirely free of fossil fuels. That’s bad news for corporations like ExxonMobil but good news for those of us wanting to save the planet from climate breakdown.”  

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20 March 2019

The government are due to amend the Trade Bill today to protect existing  standards for animal welfare, workers rights and the environment in future trade agreements. They have submitted a slightly tweaked version of the amendment put forward by Green Party Baroness Jones.

Jenny Jones’ amendment on the Trade Bill was debated two weeks ago and she received a lot of cross party support from Labour. She has also met the Minister to discuss it. It contains the current protections for the standards we have. But the Government had seemed reluctant to accept it, even though the Prime Minister had committed herself to not weakening existing standards in future trade agreements. At the moment it would be possible for Ministers to use statutory instruments to change the rules on this, but this amendment would guarantee these minimum standards were kept for rolling over all the trade deals that we currently have as a result of EU membership.

It’s a crucial political decision as the right wing freemarket types in the conservative party didn’t want their hands tied.

Amendment by Government Minister of State, Baroness Fairhead:

Page 2, line 22, leave out “(4)” and insert “(4A)”
Page 2, line 43, at end insert—
“(4A) If regulations under subsection (1) include provision in any of the areas listed
in subsection (4B), the provision must be consistent with maintaining UK
levels of statutory protection in that area.
(4B) The areas referred to in subsection (4A) are—
(a) the protection of human, animal or plant life or health;
(b) animal welfare;
(c) environmental protection;
(d) employment and labour.
(4C) “UK levels of statutory protection” means levels of protection provided for by
or under any—
(a) primary legislation,
(b) subordinate legislation, or
(c) retained direct EU legislation,
which has effect in the United Kingdom, or the part of the United Kingdom in
which the regulations have effect, on the date on which a draft of the
regulations is laid.”

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