Wide calls for Green New Deal as leaders gather for G20 London Summit
Sun 08 March 2009
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Lord Nicholas Stern has called for $400bn in green investment in advance of the G20 economic summit in London. Lord Stern said it would be a "tragic waste of an opportunity if the summit did not agree to devote a large portion of each government's recession-fighting spending to climate change". Stern's call comes in the same month as the UK Government unveiled its vision for moving the UK towards a low carbon economy.
Prior to the UK Government's announcement of its vision, the Renewable Energy Association had called for £625m to be spent in the UK on a Green New Deal.
The Prime Minister, the Business Secretary and the Climate Change Secretary jointly set out the scope and ambition of a strategy for cutting carbon from UK industry in early March. The vision includes the aim of making the UK a leader in the development and production of greener cars. The full strategy is due to be published before the summer.
According to BERR, the global low carbon market was worth £3 trillion (€3.4tr) in 2007/08 with Europe accounting for 27 per cent of the total. The Government says that the UK 'green' goods and services sector is already the 6th biggest in the world and employs over 880,000 people.
As well as aiming to become leaders in the development of low carbon cars and transport, the strategy will also involve improving industry's energy efficiency and building a low carbon energy infrastructure.
The Business Secretary Peter Mandelson said: “Low carbon is not a sector of our economy, it is, or will be, our whole economy, and a global market...A low carbon industrial strategy must seize the opportunities that will come with change. That requires a new industrial activism for a new green industrial revolution.”
Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband said: “Tackling climate change doesn’t just make moral sense, it makes economic sense too. The shift to low carbon in the UK, and around the world is now largely inevitable. What is not inevitable is that Britain benefits industrially from the transition. We want to mobilise every bit of expertise and ingenuity that Britain has to offer."
Adrian Wilkes, Chief Executive of the Environmental Industries Commission (EIC) generally welcomed the announcement. He said, however: “Securing the huge economic benefits of a low carbon economy will not be achieved through “vision” alone. We urgently need the sorts of industry support policies – such as long-term regulatory targets and coordinated policies on R&D funding, skills and training – that will turn the “vision” into a reality."
A new report for Greenpeace produced by the New Economics Foundation and published since the Government announcement accuses the Government of failing to deliver on its promise of a Green New Deal after new research which says that just 0.6 per cent of the country's economic stimulus package will be focused on new green measures.
Greenpeace says that the NEF report echoes the findings of a study earlier this year by HSBC, which found that despite talk around the World of Green New Deals and low carbon job creation, relatively little was being invested in low carbon technologies as part of economic stimulus plans.
The report also noted that Lord Nicholas Stern has recommended that countries dedicate at least 20 per cent of their stimulus spending to low carbon initiatives, but that only China and South Korea had exceeded this level, with the US and EU investing just 13 and 14 per cent respectively of their stimulus plans in green projects. (Business Green news link.)
In a speech prior to the key G20 economic meeting to be held in London, Lord Stern said: "I think we should be looking for about $US400 billion of green investment, which will lay the foundations of a strong period of growth in the world's economy in the next two or three decades and at the same time give a boost to the transition towards the low carbon growth that we are going to need to carry us forward in the future."
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