The government's own sustainability commission has once again vindicated the long-standing Green Party critique of the Labour government, said the Greens today.
According to media reports (1), a new document to be published this Wednesday (1 July) by the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) will argue that the government is "winning a few battles but losing the war" on matters like climate change.
Sir Jonathan Porritt, outgoing chair of the SDC, yesterday issued a powerful parting salvo against the government in the pages of the Independent on Sunday (2). Sir Jonathan said: "We have a terrible record of leading the world on rhetoric and then failing to deliver in our own backyard, and that's particularly true on climate change."
Responding today, Green Party leader Caroline Lucas MEP said the SDC's remarks were entirely justifiable:
"Tony Blair came to power promising the first ever green government, but it took him four years even to make a major speech about sustainability. By that time he was forging ahead with a £30 billion roadbuilding programme and encouraging airport expansions everywhere. One of his flagship green policies was a plan for 3,000 solar roofs within three years, at a time when Germany was aiming for a million and delivering thousands every month.
"Movement on the sustainability agenda has always been hindered by Labour's business-as-usual mentality. A lot of problems could be solved if only the government would accept responsibility for making sure things happen that urgently need to happen, instead of using market forces as an excuse for the failure of policy. For instance, we still produce little more offshore wind energy than Denmark, a country one-tenth of our size, and England's only wind turbine factory has just announced its closure. Labour is talking big and acting small, as always."
"Labour doesn't get it"
The Green Party leader, who hopes to win the Greens' first Westminster seat in the coming general election (3), said the Labour government had never understood the need to green the economy - nor the potential benefits of doing so. She said:
"Labour simply doesn't get it. Gordon Brown launched a so-called green stimulus package, but as the New Economics Foundation quickly pointed out it was in fact only 0.6 per cent actual new green investment. It was supposed to tackle the recession, but it included nuclear and so-called "clean coal," neither of which will deliver jobs in time to help deal with the recession. Green policies for renewables would start delivering large numbers of jobs immediately and in the long run would create far more jobs per megawatt than either nuclear or coal."
Seven years ago ago the Green Party published a critique of Labour's eco-policies titled Far More Spin Than Substance - and the Greens would say this still sums up Labour's eco-policy (4).
It's not just eco-policy but social and economic policy too...
The Greens believe Britain needs MPs at Westminster, partly to deliver the strong critique of the government's sustainability policy from within the House of Commons - but also because Labour no longer represents a progressive option. Dr Lucas said today:
"Labour has always lagged behind both the climate science and the Green Party's policies for tackling climate change. Significantly, the Green Party is also proposing far more job-creation through our million-jobs manifesto than Labour is through all of their proposals. While Labour has failed to get its head round sustainability, it has also lost its original principles about a fairer economy. Anything that used to be radical and progressive about the Labour Party can be found at the core of Green Party policy, while Labour is still way behind the Green Party on modernising the economy for a sustainable future."
She concluded: "The raison d'etre that Labour used to have now belongs to the Green Party."
Notes
1. See http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/britains-green-shame-1722451.html.
3. Brighton Pavilion, where the Greens already hold a majority of city council seats and have outpolled all other parties in the constituency in recent local and European elections.
4. 1st edition September 2002: http://www.greenparty.org.uk/files/reports/2004/Labour%20record%201.htm. 2nd edition Feb 2003: http://www.greenparty.org.uk/files/reports/2003/Far%20More%20Spin%202.htm.