Since it was first introduced in the US in 2007, the idea of a Green New Deal has received substantial support amongst a wide range of the electorate worldwide, who are increasingly rallying their governments to tackle the imminent threat of climate change.
Recently gaining traction after the election of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to US Congress, the growing need to put a Green New Deal into practice is once again making its way to the forefront of global politics. Who will speak up for a deal like this in the UK?
A recent European Commission report revealed that the UK currently leads the way in fossil fuel subsidies, providing a staggering £10.5 billion to support the industry. The continuous commitment to propping up such environmentally harmful practices against the will of a large percentage of the UK populace is not only damaging to our mutual trust, but the future of our world.
The current state of British politics is at a critical point. At a time of great political upheaval across the nation, the Liberal Democrats have a chance to take centre-stage in refocusing the national agenda and rebuilding national trust in our party.
A UK Green New Deal is a way in which we do exactly that. A progressive, positive agenda which underlines the importance of protecting our nation’s economic interests as well as our environmental prospects. By wielding much more focus towards supporting renewable and cleaner energies and protecting our natural earth, we can also thousands of new jobs and lessen inequality in a fresh, booming new industrial sector.
Not only is a move towards such a deal a signal of intent of how the Liberal Democrats intend to develop future policy in the face of a changing world, but it signifies to our nation that, in a time of great political upheaval – we remain a party committed to equality, committed to the development of our economy and committed to a better future for the United Kingdom and the world at large.
* Dan Willis is the Liberal Democrat candidate for the Bredbury and Woolley ward in Stockport for the 2023 local elections.
Follow @LibDemVoice on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Did The Archers get George Grundy's sentence right?
The attitudes of Britain's ethnic minority population - The Week in Polls
Alex Salmond 1954-2024
Where's the Labour candidate?
Labour's first 100 days - unravelling the spin
A West End Halloween event! #dundeewestend
Michael BG
Martin Gray
Hywel
Peter Martin
Steve Trevethan
13 Comments
Yes, and there are a number of areas where we could be offering new “radical” solutions to today’s problems, but the leaders of the party do not appear to be up to the task.
Leaving the EU would weaken our influence. Brown coal in the former GDR, dependence on coal in Poland, are not issues easily dealt with. More electrical interconnectors would help, not just from EU member states. North Africa perhaps?
Daniel,
Libdem policy includes a whole raft of green measures in the manifesto that constitute a Green New Deal for the UK https://www.libdems.org.uk/environment.
Plans to revive the Swansea tidal lagoon without government funding were announced yesterday https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/04/swansea-tidal-lagoon-plan-government. It is an initiative we should be getting behind.
The scrapping of investment plans for new nuclear power stations by both Toshiba and Hitachi leave a gaping hole in UK energy policy in a decade’s time after old nuclear and coal plants have closed. The proposed new plants were to provide about 15% of energy supply and thousands of new jobs.
“The proposed new plants were to provide about 15% of energy supply ”
No they weren’t. 15% of electricity supply is more like it. There’s a small matter of gas for central heating, cement works, aluminium smelters, steel making (not so much of that lately) petrol & diesel for road transport, kero for aviation…. Add all that up, and it’s more like 2 or 3% of energy supply. Not so significant after all.
Jenny,
Perhaps you wouldn’t say something that trite if your lights went out or more significantly if someone you know had their dialysis machine lose power. Or looking at your specific examples – your central heating pump didn’t work, the cement works computer control system failed, or the steelworks, or the petrol pump, or the diesel pump or the kero pump.
@david evans
My point is that the 15% is of ELECTRICITY supply, not ENERGY supply. Ok? It really doesn’t help energy discussions when people get confused, and start talking about nuclear power stations providing something which they were never going to.
Having just looked at Gridwatch, current demand/supply for ELECTRICITY is 46GW , typical for a winter evening, 10 from wind and 2 from the french and dutch interconnectors. Just over 6 from the UK nuclear fleet. Could that be replaced timely? I would say yes, easily, with combined cycle gas turbines fueled with gas from Qatar. In the time it would have taken to build the nuclear white elephants, there will be plenty of time to build more on and off shore wind, battery storage, possibly tidal lagoons etc.
Something to be said for negative demand as well, turning off high electricity users at peak, for example.
David Evans 5th Feb ’19 – 4:21pm: Or have your own personal or family power station? based on diffused sunlight, so popular that the government is withdrawing financial support.
Jenny, Indeed the first three sentences of your post were about ELECTRICITY supply, not ENERGY supply as you put it. The remainder were a rather demeaning comment emphasising the *small* matter of gas etc (totally unnecessary to make your point, unless you wanted to rub someones nose in it, and culminated in your ultimate put down “Not so significant after all.”
As I said on previous occasions it is considered essential in political debate to undermine your opponent and put him/her down, but on LDV too often it seems to be most important to put people down who are fellow Lib Dems.
Manners do matter if we want to be a team, and even more so if we want to be a winning team once again.
Talking about green issues, does anybody have information about the biomass conversion of Drax Power Station in Selby (re-opened in 2013 by Ed Davey ) ?
It has been suggested that more (150% more ) rather than less green house gases are being produced by using biomass instead of coal ? Add to which most of the biomass has to be imported from the USA with all that that involves in producing extra green house gases in transport.
Whenever you read a statement like “this new power station will supply electricity to the equivalent of 100,000 homes” ask yourself “but can the people in those homes afford that electricity?”
Most of our “ fossil fuel subsidies “ are because we only charge 5% vat in domestic power. Are you really proposing to increase to 20% ?
We must not forget energy efficiency and savings technology.
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/broadcast/read/41376
@Simon – I think the question we need to ask is what is a subsidy?
It is clear from the linked Guardian article, that the EU Commission regards the UK 5% vat rate on domestic gas and electricity from all sources, a fossil fuels subsidy. This is because it (VAT) isn’t being charged at the standard 20% rate. I’ve not read the report, but I would expect following the EU’s reasoning that the 5% VAT rate would also appear as a renewables subsidy.
Increasing the VAT rate to 20% would reduce the monetary value of the ‘subsidies’, however, given the way chosen to graphically present the relative fuel subsidies in the Guardian article, I doubt this would significantly alter the graph. To do that would require a significant change in the UK energy mix and thus the proportion of the domestic fuel cost that can be attributed to fossil fuels. An alternative would be to try and charge different VAT rates for energy from different sources…