Tag Archives: Ed Miliband

COP26: it’s time to deliver

Posted on by Leave a comment

This is an extract from a speech by the Rt Hon Ed Miliband MP, shadow secretary of state for business, energy and industrial strategy, to Green Alliance on 13 October 2021.

I want to try to draw lessons for Glasgow from the ill-fated Copenhagen summit, which I attended as UK climate change secretary, and the successful Paris Summit of 2015. Copenhagen ended in acrimony for a whole range of reasons, but partly it was the result of a breakdown in trust between developing and vulnerable countries on one hand and developed countries on the other.

Read more

A new strategy for the next era of green policy

Posted on by One comment

Strategy 2015-18-1A lot has changed since Green Alliance was founded 35 years ago. Most of the people who partied with us at our celebration last night were still at school, and some hadn’t been born.  So let’s just remind ourselves: in 1979 we had one lumbering energy giant – the Central Electricity Generating Board– providing electricity to all of our homes and offices, the majority of which was generated by coal. Read more

Why Miliband and Cameron shouldn’t be shy about climate change

Posted on by One comment

Climate ChangeA version of this article was first published on Labour List.

At last year’s party conference, Shadow Business Secretary Chuka Umunna said to a public meeting that he had recommended Labour’s electoral team to make a television broadcast around Ed Miliband’s work at the Copenhagen summit in 2009. It would have shown the Labour leader as someone operating comfortably and in a statesmanlike way with the world’s most powerful. But it didn’t happen and, instead of showing how Labour could stand strong on the international stage they focused on domestic energy policy, launching the prize freeze at the same conference. Read more

Conference diary: Labour’s sunny spells

Posted on by Leave a comment

BrightonGreen Alliance’s roving diarist of the party conference season, Alastair Harper, gives his view from the Labour conference in Brighton. It first appeared on BusinessGreen.

I am by the beach in perfect weather and this has been my office for the past few days. In between stuffy roundtables on the subject of the energy gap, people are swimming in the sea.

It is hard not to feel optimistic about all things but, as we say, you can’t confuse weather with the climate. So how is the political climate for the Labour Party on green? After yesterday’s leader’s speech I think that it’s also hotting up. Whether you think Labour will form the next government, whether you like his ideas or not, Ed Miliband has put the environment back into British political discourse. Read more

Government must lead the way to a more sustainable capitalism

Posted on by 10 comments

This exclusive article by opposition leader Ed Miliband is published today in Green Alliance’s journal Inside Track.

The world economy is struggling to recover from a crisis caused by inadequately regulated financial activity. Governments are dealing with deficits that are too high and growth that is too low. And, long before the credit crunch, people in the middle were struggling with squeezed living standards. For too long, economies have encouraged wealth creation focused on short term returns which failed to reward productive behaviour and skewed distribution towards the top. It is a problem that requires a fundamental re-examination.

But there is a further, deeper crisis underlying this.  This is the crisis of the global environment which is now rebounding on the real economy. Resource scarcity is affecting prices, for example failed crops in one part of the world lead to rocketing food prices in another part. Energy prices have continued to rise despite the global slowdown. These are resource scarcities right at the heart of the global economy. Read more