April 25 2005
Real Progress or Business as Usual?
Leicester Green Party candidates have welcomed today’s launch of the Green Party's climate change mini-manifesto (10am, Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 1 Birdcage Walk, Westminster) featuring leading Greens such as Caroline Lucas MEP and London Assembly Member Darren Johnson.
A Green Government would introduce a Carbon Tax based on carbon content of fuels, and would increase energy from renewable sources to 40% by 2020. It would implement radical changes to the transport system to reduce harmful emissions, including a reversal of the Government’s airport expansion policy and an expansion and re-nationalisation of the rail network.
The Greens would take action not only to encourage cleaner energy but also to reduce to reduce total energy demand, for example through the implementation of a Warmer Homes Act and Smart Energy Councils.
Geoff Forse, candidate for Leicester West, comments: "Although climate change is a bigger threat than terrorism according to the Government's own scientific adviser, it doesn’t have a section to itself in the Labour manifesto and doesn’t feature at all in the Tory manifesto. This is not surprising in view of the performance of these parties when in office. The Labour Government has refused to re-introduce a transport fuel tax escalator, and continues to back a massive expansion of the aviation industry, the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions. The Tories are even more willing than Labour to act as a mouthpiece for the motoring lobby - yet Britain’s £43bn a year road habit accounts for more than one-fifth of UK greenhouse gas emissions.
"The Lib Dems are better at making the right noises, but their record in office is no better. They backed the M74 Motorway extension, and opposed congestion charging in Edinburgh. Whilst the big three parties recycle Green rhetoric, the Greens are the only party offering concrete measures - such as a 90% emissions reduction target by 2050 - to genuinely address climate change."
Matt Follett, candidate for Leicester South, adds: "The records of these parties are similar because they all remain committed to pursuing economic growth at all costs. The challenges we face can't simply be met by following a business-as-usual agenda. Making reductions of greenhouse gas emissions on the scale we need requires a revolution in the way we run our economy and the way we measure progress.”
The 7 Green climate change measures set out in the mini manifesto are:
1) Target: 90% CO2 emissions reductions by 2050, 20% by 2010
2) Trade: a shift from the global to the local
3) Taxes: introduce a range of eco taxes (including carbon tax, aviation fuel tax, plastic bag tax)
4) Renewables: 40% of energy from renewables by 2020
5) Home energy conservation: 30% reduction in home energy demand by 2015
6) Local authority emissions reductions: 45% by 2020
7) Transport: 10% reduction in road transport by 2010