A Green New Deal for the UK? Part 5
We asked individuals from environmental and social justice groups, politics, academia, businesses and young people to tell us what they think it might mean for the UK. This is the last in our series of posts featuring their replies.
Caroline Lucas, MP for Brighton Pavilion
Over the past eight years, successive governments have built a bonfire out of the measures designed to cut emissions. Zero carbon homes was scrapped. Onshore wind has been effectively banned. Solar power has been shafted. The Green Investment Bank has been flogged off. And, whilst MPs grasp the severity of this situation, we know there are still many glaring inconsistencies in mainstream political thinking. For example, we cannot tackle climate change and build new runways, or prop up North Sea oil and gas, or spend billions on new roads. We cannot tackle climate change with an economy built on the assumption that precious minerals, fresh air, clean water and rare species can magically regenerate themselves in an instant, that somehow the Earth will expand to meet our voracious appetite for new stuff. If we are to truly avoid climate catastrophe, we must go beyond what is considered politically possible. We must change the debate.
A Green New Deal would do just that. It would mobilise resources on a scale unprecedented in peacetime, to tackle the climate emergency and address spiralling inequality. It would involve huge investment in clean energy, warm homes and affordable public transport, delivering a decent, well paid job to hundreds of thousands of people across the country. It would rebuild once proud communities that have been hollowed out by deindustrialisation and austerity, allowing them to thrive as part of a collective endeavour to protect the planet. And it would protect and restore threatened habitats and carbon sinks like forests, wild places, soils and oceans. Anything less simply won’t be enough.
Rebecca Willis, research fellow, Lancaster University
The biggest impact of the Green New Deal on the UK could be symbolic, but highly significant: it could encourage, or even force, politicians to speak openly about climate change. In a way, President Trump paved the way for the Green New Deal in the US. His election – and with it, the blow to the cosy certainties of centrist politics – made it possible for his opponents to throw caution to the wind, and think bold. And that’s just what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has done. As a result, no Democratic presidential candidate can now afford to remain silent about climate action.
Compare that to the UK, where climate change is conspicuous by its absence in mainstream political debate. My research with members of parliament showed that politicians have been reluctant to speak out on climate change, shying away from discussion of radical action. It has suited them to keep quiet. It used to be like this in the US. But the Green New Deal has put climate back where it should be: as the defining political issue of our time. It may just provide the spark for a similar shift in the UK.
[Image: Sunrise movement in December 2018. Courtesy of Becker1999 via Flickr]
We asked 
Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come and the notion of a Green New Deal has arrived at the perfect moment. As the Brexit and Trump phenomena mature, we need more popular ideas rooted in good sense to re-establish trust in our institutions, our social contracts, and a rules-based consensus.
We asked 
Make no mistake about it, the Green New Deal is anything but. While paraded as a plan to help the environment, a light scratch beneath the surface is all it takes to reveal its true, altogether redder, colours. Fundamentally, it is a blueprint to expand government control in a way never seen before, and besiege the very system which will give the world’s largest economy the best shot at arresting climate change. The UK would be foolish to follow suit.
A Green New Deal could stimulate growth that does not undermine the carrying capacity of our planet. If our growth is high quality, innovative and sustainable, then we will set ourselves apart from the pack; we will have a significant sustainability advantage and we’ll have healthier business and communities. If we grasp the opportunity to be pioneers, we will secure an advantage not just for our country, but we will also be exporting sustainable solutions and ideas which will have a progressive and positive impact the world over.
Through the divestment movement, British and Irish students have forged the space for transformative climate action by stripping fossil fuel companies of their social licence operate. Now the Green New Deal offers a framework for governments to systematically dismantle the fossil fuel industry while investing to deliver a just, zero carbon economy.
It means between £49m and £141m of savings every year from our residents’ energy bills. 30,000 new jobs in the environment and sustainability sector. £17m savings to the NHS each year by eradicating cold, damp, energy inefficient homes. A £1.3 billion boost to the local economy from dealing with our congestion and air pollution problems.
Co-ordinated state action is necessary to address climate change without harming the economy or inflicting the costs on the poorest. Far from being a radical dream, a Green New Deal is increasingly the only sensible choice.
The Green New Deal is a vision that could embrace many different ecological and economic strategies, but it would certainly have to mean a new approach to government spending and to the regulation of the financial sector. 
The first in a short series of blogs where we ask individuals from environmental and social justice groups, politics, academia, businesses and young people to tell us what they think the Green New Deal might mean for the UK. 