Correcting the report we made yesterday, Labour conference passed both composites on a Green New Deal. The first is already published here. This is the text of the second composite, also passed on a card vote:
Conference notes:
*Already 1.2°C of warming has taken place, causing floods, droughts and rising seas disproportionately impacting on developing countries.
*The IPCC August 2021 report is a ‘code red for humanity’ and that this is the significant decade for preventing catastrophic climate change by limiting global heating to below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
*The COP26 Climate Change Conference in Glasgow this year may be the final opportunity for the world to slow and then reverse climate change.
*Intensifying climate and environmental breakdown bring devastating threats to public health and livelihoods.
*Even before the pandemic, air pollution represented a national health emergency resulting in an estimated 40,000 early deaths each year, costing the UK £20 billion annually.
*The UK also faces a post-Covid unemployment crisis with insecurity and low-pay rife for workers.
*Climate change is a global issue that requires international solutions, because this is as much a social injustice as an environmental one.
*The environmental cost of imported steel is greater than domestically produced steel, and any transition that does not keep steel in the UK is a false economy.
*Keir Starmer has pledged to hardwire the Green New Deal into everything we do.
*Labour councils lead on decarbonisation: Nottingham City has reduced per capita CO2 emissions by 52.3% since 2005 and aims to be carbon neutral by 2028.
Conference believes:
*Britain must cut the substantial majority of carbon emissions by 2030
*Policies must be developed with workers and trade unions, not imposed on them.
*In working with businesses to reduce their impact on the environment.
*In line with the ILO’s definition of a just transition, that ‘strong social consensus on the goal and pathways to sustainability is fundamental.’
*Privatisation has undermined decarbonisation and pandemic response measures.
*Public and alternative forms of ownership will be necessary to tackle climate and environmental breakdown.
*Ahead of COP26 Labour should promote a just, green recovery combining efforts to address unemployment, climate change, and public health.
*The UK’s pathway to 1.5°C needs a balanced and secure energy mix that includes renewables, nuclear, and the flexibility currently provided by gas and in future by fuels including hydrogen.
*Debt relief is essential to climate justice.
*We can solve the unemployment crisis and rapidly decarbonise with a Green New Deal creating secure, well-paid, unionised green jobs.
Conference resolves to support a just transition toward a low-carbon economy, including:
*Mass investment in green technologies, such as green gas
*Expansion of public transport, and electrification
*Just climate adaptation, including investing in fire and rescue services, flood defences, and resilient infrastructure
*Upgrading homes to the highest standard of energy efficiency, including retrofitting and insulation.
*Agricultural transition and sustainable food policies, putting food and farming at the heart of the global response to the climate emergency.
*Establishing a legal right to breathe clean air by ensuring the law on air quality is at least as strict as WHO guidelines, with tough new targets, deadlines and duties on Ministers to enforce them and new powers for local authorities
*A comprehensive training program;
*Creating well-financed publicly owned national and regional green investment banks
*Using public procurement to promote decarbonisation, environmental protections, and international justice in global supply chains;
*New nuclear plants, including Sizewell C and Small Modular Reactors;
*Reform of international trade rules to better build up our domestic energy manufacturing sectors;
*Devolving powers to devolved and local authorities to support a just transition for workers
*A global Green New Deal, sharing technology and resources internationally, bringing forward debt relief and financially assisting the transition in developing countries.
