Dear constituent,

Thank you for contacting me about a green new deal and the Decarbonisation and Economic Strategy Bill.

I agree that we need urgent action to avoid climate catastrophe. The report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change this summer was the starkest reminder so far that the climate crisis is both here now and the biggest long-term threat we face. At the same time, it made clear that with strong and sustained reductions in carbon dioxide emissions we can limit climate change and that we must act this decade to have any chance of limiting warming to close to 1.5°C.

I therefore share your concern that the Government is not meeting this situation with the speed and scale of action it demands. While it has now published its net zero strategy, I am afraid that it continues to fail to invest in the green transition at the scale needed.

I believe we should aim to achieve the substantial majority of our emissions reductions by 2030, make climate justice a priority and take action to accelerate the benefits of nature restoration and recovery. It is for this reason that I support calls for a green new deal and an additional £28 billion of capital investment in our country’s green transition for every year of this decade. We should, for example, make it a national mission to upgrade the energy efficiency of every home that needs it, lowering bills, cutting emissions and creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. We should also invest up to £3 billion in greening our steel industry, alongside investment in factories to build batteries for electric vehicles, a thriving hydrogen industry and manufacturing of offshore wind turbines here in the UK.

As you note, tinkering around the edges will not be enough to meet the defining challenges of our time. I therefore support many of the aims of the Decarbonisation and Economic Strategy Bill. The Bill is highly unlikely, however, to receive a debate or a vote in Parliament but is instead a way of drawing attention to an issue that requires a change in the law. I can nevertheless assure you that I will continue to support calls for a green new deal and efforts to press the Government to deliver the scale of response we need to address the climate crisis.

Thank you once again for contacting me about this issue.

Yours Sincerely,

Peter Dowd MP