A 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
A 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
Green 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
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
