This evening, Adrian Ramsay, deputy leader of the Green Party and parliamentary candidate for Norwich South, will call for a fundamental restructuring of the economy as part of the process of tackling climate change.
Adrian Ramsay will be addressing students and alumni at the International Students House in London (1).
In the lecture, entitled "Creating a Green Economy," Adrian will call for a fairer and more sustainable economy, with issues such as climate change seen not in isolation but in the context of global inequality and instability. He will highlight the Green Party's policy for a Green New Deal, the flagship policy of this year's election manifesto, in which the Greens called for a £44bn immediate spending package to create over a million new jobs in low-carbon industry in the UK, to help tackle the recession while moving the country quickly towards a post-carbon economy.
Adrian will call for fairer trade and greater localisation of economies, saying that: "We need rules to promote fair trade and create sustainable local economies worldwide."
"We need fundamental changes in the way our economy is set up if we are to tackle climate change and create a fairer world. Green Party policies would see the closing of tax havens, higher corporation tax for the big companies and investment in industries that will create long-lasting jobs and reduce carbon emissions."
"Economic globalisation is locking producers, of the global North and South, into an increasingly competitive system. As a result social and environmental standards are being eroded. We need trade rules that promote fair trade and sustainable local economies worldwide."
Adrian will criticise Prime Minister Gordon Brown for talking of ending the boom-bust cycle while laying out little in terms of regulation. He will argue that it is only possible to have the highs of a boom if there is a bust shortly to follow, and that we therefore need less risky decision-making if we are to live in a stable and fair economy.
This evening's Denning lecture will mark the start of a series of lectures to be given by the Greens' deputy leader in the run-up to the Copenhagen climate summit (2).
Notes to editors
1) The address of the lecture is: International Students House, 229 Great Portland Street, London, W1W 5PN.
2) Adrian Ramsay will be giving a lecture at Warwick University this Thursday, 29 October, and another in November at the University of East Anglia in Norwich.