A major international report to be published next month, already welcomed by the UN secretary-general, will strongly echo much of what the Green Party has been arguing for years, the Greens said today.
In welcoming the report's publication, Caroline Lucas MEP, leader of the Green Party, commented today:
"The State of the Future report acknowledges what the Green Party has been saying all along - that the need to tackle climate change offers us an opportunity to re-invent the world's economy as something both fairer and truly sustainable.
"It's just a pity that governments like ours spend more effort posturing on the world stage than delivering the necessary policies in their own country. It would be much better if we led by example."
"Invaluable insights"
The 2009 State of the Future report will be published by the Millennium Project, a think-tank formerly part of the World Federation of United Nations Associations and backed by a range of organisations including UNESCO, the World Bank, the US Department of Defense and the Rockefeller Foundation. It will cover 6,700 pages, drawing on contributions from 2,700 experts from all over the world. Its findings provide "invaluable insights into the future for the United Nations, its member states, and civil society" according to Ban Ki-moon, secretary-general of the UN (1).
Its authors state that: "The scope and scale of the future effects of climate change - ranging from changes in weather patterns to loss of livelihoods and disappearing states - has unprecedented implications for political and social stability."
But they also argue that the current economic and environmental crises offer an opportunity for radical change and sustainable development: "The good news is that the global financial crisis and climate change planning may be helping humanity to move from its often selfish, self-centred adolescence to a more globally responsible adulthood... Many perceive the current economic disaster as an opportunity to invest in the next generation of greener technologies, to rethink economic and development assumptions, and to put the world on course for a better future."
The Green Party's 2009 election manifesto "It's the economy, stupid," like other Green Party statements made since the current recession began, argued a remarkably similar point about tackling the recession in such a way that we slash CO2 emissions and lay the basis for a fairer, sustainable economy.
The Green Party's manifesto spelt out a £44bn Green New Deal which, said the Greens, could immediately lay the basis for over one million UK jobs to be delivered within 2-3 years.
Gordon Brown's equivalent, by contrast was a £20bn pacage of which only 0.6% was actually new money for low-carbon projects, according to the New Economics Foundation (2).
Note to editors
1. Cited in yesterday's Independent on Sunday: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/the-planets-future-climate-change-will-cause-civilisation-to-collapse-1742759.html.
2. http://www.neweconomics.org/gen/z_sys_PublicationDetail.aspx?PID=285