Last chance for a green budget

The Guardian, Wednesday 22 April 2009

Today we face three of the greatest challenges of our time, global recession, energy security and the threat of catastrophic climate change. The only solution to this triple crunch is a low-carbon recovery. Millions of jobs could be created around the world, global warming emissions slashed and energy security increased. There is no choice between economic recovery and climate recovery - they are one and the same. But time is running out and we need bold measures at the heart of this year's budget to build a low-carbon economy, ramp up energy efficiency and provide the renewables industry with urgently needed support to overcome immediate difficulties. To help provide the critical investment required, the government should set up and fund a Green Infrastructure Bank, backed by Green Bonds. This could leverage over £100bn in private finance to help create a dynamic low-carbon energy system.
This financial support must be used to drive programmes that ensure by 2020 every UK home is a low-carbon home, the UK meets its renewable targets and is a world leader in renewable energy manufacturing and deployment. It is time to rebuild and repower the UK.Ed Matthew Friends of the Earth Philip Wolfe Renewable Energy Association Maria McCaffery British Wind Energy Association Graham Meeks Combined Heat & Power Association Howard Johns Solar Trade Association Paul King UK Green Building Council Andrew Simms New Economics Foundation John Sauven Greenpeace Shaun Spiers Campaign to Protect Rural England Jenny Saunders National Energy Action Ann Pettifor Advocacy International Neil Schofield Worcester - Bosch Group John Meadows Schott UK Ltd And 46 others
Polly Toynbee (Be bold, Chancellor, and you could be our Lloyd George, 21 April) cannot resolve the obvious contradictions within New Labour. New Labour has had plenty of chances to pursue policies, such as higher taxes for the rich, which would help produce a more equal society - but have repeatedly failed to do so. The government has had huge electoral majorities and popular goodwill to have already passed a People's Budget - but never took that chance. Toynbee wrote last year (Stop tinkering, Gordon. 25 April 2008): "Once and for all, Labour needs to show unequivocally whose side it is on" - but that was before the recession hit. In September, she gave them another "last chance", if they got rid of Brown. Yet Brown is still in office, and now Toynbee gives them one more "last chance", if Darling can only produce a budget either he or Brown could have introduced years ago, in better economic circumstances: maybe she feels they still deserve one last "last chance". Derrick Cameron Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire