The Green New Deal bill has launched!

The Green New Deal is a ten year, game - changing plan to stop climate change and build a world in which we can thrive. And now a Green New Deal bill is beginning its journey through Parliament. This bill is our first step towards a liveable world for all of us.

On Wednesday, Caroline Lucas, Clive Lewis, Nadia Whittome, Zarah Sultana, and a cross party group of co sponsors introduced a new Green New Deal Bill in Parliament.

Yesterday the Government released it's disappointing net-zero strategy which proves that the Green New Deal is more needed than ever. The Government's strategy completely fails to provide the funding and policies necessary to reach net zero by 2050 (already a dangerously unambitious target) or meet the sixth Carbon Budget.

By contrast, the Green New Deal Bill (written with the help of civil society groups, scientists and unions) lays out the path for the UK to meet its commitments to stay within 1.5 degrees of global heating, while improving everyday life and delivering on promises to ‘level up’ the nations.

The GND bill will:

Create legally binding targets to cut emissions, reduce inequality and reverse environmental damage
Change the way the Government manages the economy to enable huge investment into jobs, green infrastructure, public services, and environmental protection
Enable a comprehensive action plan to transform our energy supply, transport system, farming, buildings and the way we work so we can decarbonise quickly
block investment in the things we need to stop now – making fossil fuel extraction a thing of the past
ensure that transformation here doesn’t harm communities elsewhere, by making plans to pay reparations that simultaneously deliver climate and development goals.

MPs including (from left to right) Caroline Lucas, Nadia Whittome, Zarah Sultana, Clive Lewis and Claire Hanna launched the bill outside Parliament on Wednesday

It includes measures to:

End our fixation on growth and prioritise new measures that help guide us towards improvement in people’s health and well-being, the reduction of inequality, tackling the climate emergency, and the restoration and protection of the natural environment
Redistribute democratic power and resources to devolved government and elected mayors, including the power to raise their own green bonds
Guarantee climate justice, by ensuring investment across the UK, with a particular focus on de-industrialised areas and among the many communities who have been excluded from full participation in the economy and society
Transform our energy supply and transport systems, eliminating greenhouse gas emissions and reducing air pollution
Make housing energy-efficient, ensuring all new homes are zero-carbon and meet social need
Decarbonise our farming, reducing the ecological damage caused by current methods and improving our food system
Promote global justice by ensuring finance and technology for the global south, and by promoting the Green New Deal approach globally

MPs could sign up to the bill right now. All they have to do is add their name. But most of them are ignoring it. They’re either not facing up to the scale of the crisis or they are choosing to ally themselves with climate delaying corporations.

It’s our job to rise up and make them feel the heat. The Government’s response to the pandemic shows that large scale, society wide mobilisation is possible. This autumn everybody will be talking about climate change, so it’s vital that we use this moment to pile on the pressure.

Here's two things you can do right now:

Sign up to back the bill as an individual - to show MPs that this bill is popular with the public
Email your MP now to ask them to back the bill - by signing an EDM in support of the bill, or by getting in touch with GND Rising and pledging their support

Back the bill

Email your MP

We are Generation Green New Deal. We say no more excuses. No more hiding. Face up to the scale of the crisis and do what’s necessary. Back the Green New Deal bill.