Monday, September 02, 2019

Will Capitalism Pay the Price

John Sauven, an economist and executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: “No one in government is still trying to argue that this is not an emergency, and yet no one in government is acting as though it is..."

Britain’s biggest environmental groups have warned the government that funding to tackle the climate emergency must be more than double next year to avoid an even greater cost from catastrophic ecological breakdown in the future.  More than a dozen leading environment charities, including Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth as well  as Oxfam and Christian Aid,  including the Woodland Trust, WWF and Islamic Relief, said urgent action was required to raise spending.

The groups said that government spending needed to increase from roughly £17bn a year at present to at least £42bn over the next three years. Further increases would be required in the future should the government wish to meet its promise of net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Among the priorities put forward by the groups are an £11.6bn expansion in transport spending, including a UK-wide car scrappage scheme to remove heavily-polluting vehicles from the roads. As much as £2.6bn per year should be spent on rewilding projects and other land management schemes, billions should be ploughed into buildings and industry to boost environmental sustainability, while more funding should be given to help communities disrupted by the transition to a low-carbon economy.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/02/uk-funding-to-tackle-climate-emergency-needs-to-more-than-double

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