A better world is possible - Global Commons Institute

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Copyright Bruce Nixon 2010. All rights reserved. This electronic copy is provided free for personal, non-commercial use only. www.brucenixon.com Massive investment in renewable energy and wider environmental transformation in the UK, leading to The creation of thousands of new green collar jobs Reining in reckless aspects of the finance sector – but making low-cost capital available to fund the UK’s green economic shift Building a new alliance between environmentalists, industry, agriculture, and unions to put the interests of the real economy ahead of those of footloose finance The ‘Green New Deal’ is designed to power a “renewables” revolution, create thousands of green-collar jobs and rein in the distorting power of the finance sector while making more low-cost capital available for pressing priorities. The most serious global crisis since the Great Depression calls for reform the like of which has not, yet, been considered by politicians. This entails re-regulating finance and taxation plus a huge transformational programme aimed at substantially reducing the use of fossil fuels and, in the process, tackling the unemployment and decline in demand caused by the credit crunch. It involves policies and new funding mechanisms that will reduce emissions and allow us to cope better with the coming energy shortages caused by peak oil. The Green New Deal requires action at local, national, regional and global levels. Focusing first on the specific needs of the UK, the Green New Deal outlines an interlocking programme of action that will require an ambitious legislative programme backed by a bold new alliance of industry, agriculture, labour and environmentalists. Proposal’s set out in the group’s report include: • Executing a bold new vision for a low-carbon energy system that will include making ‘every building a power station’. • Creating and training a ‘carbon army’ of workers to provide the human resources for a vast environmental reconstruction programme. • Establishing an Oil Legacy Fund, paid for by a windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas companies as part of a wide-ranging package of financial innovations and incentives to assemble the tens of billions of pounds that need to be spent. These would also include Local Authority green bonds, green gilts and green family savings bonds. The monies raised would help deal with the effects of climate change and smooth the transition to a low-carbon economy. • Ensuring more realistic fossil fuel prices that include the cost to the environment, and that are high enough to tackle climate change. This will provide funding for economic incentives to drive efficiency and bring alternative fuels to market and for safety nets to those vulnerable to higher prices via rapidly rising carbon taxes. • Minimising corporate tax evasion by clamping down on tax havens and corporate financial reporting. A range of measures including deducting tax at source for all income paid to financial institutions in tax havens would provide much-needed sources of public finance at a time when economic contraction is reducing conventional tax receipts. • Re-regulating the domestic financial system. Inspired by reforms implemented in the 1930s, this would imply cutting interest rates across the board– including the reduction of the Bank of England’s interest rate - and changes in debt-management policy to enable reductions in interest rates across all government borrowing. This is designed to help those borrowing to build a new energy and transport 124
Copyright Bruce Nixon 2010. All rights reserved. This electronic copy is provided free for personal, non-commercial use only. www.brucenixon.com infrastructure. In parallel, to prevent inflation, much tighter regulation of the wider financial environment is needed. • Breaking up the discredited financial institutions that have needed so much public money to prop them up in the latest credit crunch. Large banking and finance groups should be forcibly demerged. Retail banking should be split from both corporate finance (merchant banking) and from securities dealing. The demerged units should then be split into smaller banks. Mega banks make mega mistakes that affect us all. Instead of institutions that are ‘too big to fail’, we need institutions that are small enough to fail without creating problems for depositors and the wider public. The Green New Deal Group urges UK Government to take action at the international level to help build the orderly, well-regulated and supportive policy and financial environment that is required to restore economic stability and nurture environmental sustainability, including: • Allowing all nations far greater autonomy over domestic monetary policy (interest rates and money supply) and fiscal policy (government spending and taxation). • Setting a formal international target for atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations that keeps future temperature rise as far below 2°C as possible. • Giving poorer countries the opportunity to escape poverty without fuelling global warming by helping to finance massive investment in climate-change adaptation and renewable energy. In this way we can begin to stabilise the current crisis, and lay the foundations for the emergence of a set of resilient low carbon economies, rich in jobs and based on independent sources of energy supply. The Green New Deal will rekindle a vital sense of purpose, restoring public trust and refocusing the use of capital on public priorities and sustainability. In this way it can also greatly improve quality of life. There is an immediate imperative to restore faith that society can survive the dreadful threats it now faces as a result of the triple crunch. The Group believes we can deliver a crucial national plan for a low-energy future. The absence of any such plan at present leaves the country very vulnerable. The Green New Deal Group : Larry Elliott, Economics Editor of the Guardian, Colin Hines, Co-Director of Finance for the Future, Tony Juniper, former Director of Friends of the Earth, Jeremy Leggett, founder and Chairman of Solarcentury and SolarAid, Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP, Richard Murphy, Co-Director of Finance for the Future and Director, Tax Research LLP, Ann Pettifor, Campaign Director of Operation Noah, Charles Secrett, Advisor on Sustainable Development, Andrew Simms, Policy Director, nef . Part 4 - Reform of global institutions and global governance Many current proposals are updated versions of John Maynard Keynes’s proposals, key aspects of which were blocked by US negotiators at the Bretton Woods post war conference in July 1944, who had the upper hand because Britain was bankrupt and hugely indebted to USA. 125
Page 1 and 2:
Copyright Bruce Nixon 2010. All rig
Page 3 and 4:
Page 5 and 6:
Page 7 and 8:
Page 9 and 10:
Page 11 and 12:
Page 13 and 14:
Page 15 and 16:
Page 17 and 18:
Page 19 and 20:
Page 21 and 22:
Page 23 and 24:
Page 25 and 26:
Page 27 and 28:
Page 29 and 30:
Page 31 and 32:
Page 33 and 34:
Page 35 and 36:
Page 37 and 38:
Page 39 and 40:
Page 41 and 42:
Page 43 and 44:
Page 45 and 46:
Page 47 and 48:
Page 49 and 50:
Page 51 and 52:
Page 53 and 54:
Page 55 and 56:
Page 57 and 58:
Page 59 and 60:
Page 61 and 62:
Page 63 and 64:
Page 65 and 66:
Page 67 and 68:
Page 69 and 70:
Page 71 and 72:
Page 73 and 74: Copyright Bruce Nixon 2010. All rig
Page 123: Copyright Bruce Nixon 2010. All rig
Page 175 and 176:
Page 177 and 178:
Page 179 and 180:
Page 181 and 182:
Page 183 and 184:
Page 185 and 186:
Page 187 and 188:
Page 189 and 190:
Page 191 and 192:
Page 193 and 194:
Page 195 and 196:
Page 197 and 198:
Page 199 and 200:
Page 201 and 202:
Page 203 and 204:
Page 205 and 206:
Page 207 and 208:
Page 209 and 210:
Page 211:
show all

A better world is possible - Global Commons Institute

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?