11 March 2021
- The call comes as a report finds just one fifth of money spent by major economies is going towards green policy as part of the Covid recovery
The Green Party is demanding the government take immediate action to invest in green measures to ensure we build back greener after Covid.
A report from the UN and the University of Oxford found that only a small number of countries have made significant increases in spending to tackle the climate and ecological crisis since the start of the pandemic. [1]
According to the report, the UK’s Green recovery spending as a percentage of its total recovering spending is just 17% [2] , falling far behind other nations such as Canada (78%), Germany (47%), France (35%), South Korea (27%) and Spain (24%). Turkey has spent 100% of its total recovery spending on Green measures.
Jonathan Bartley, co-leader of the Green Party, said:
“The government is failing to ensure that its level of investment in a Green Recovery matches its rhetoric on the climate and ecological crises. This data clearly shows the UK is falling far behind other countries worldwide when it comes to the percentage of Covid recovery investment being spent on green policy.
“In a year when the UK plays host to the UN climate talks and a G7 summit focused on climate, this is a national embarrassment on the global stage.
“What we need to see is the UK government proving their credentials as a world-leader for green investment, which secures jobs for local communities and puts the environment at the heart of all ministerial decisions, putting their actions into words and setting an example for other nations to follow.
“This leadership is urgently needed since the report is clear that only a handful of governments around the world are taking the climate and ecological crisis seriously when investing for Covid recovery. Most are simply kicking the can down the road and putting the future at risk.
“There is a golden opportunity for the world to turn to renewable, clean policy in the wake of the pandemic so we don’t revert to the highly damaging and backward tendencies of the pre-Covid era which is pushing our planet and its inhabitants to the brink.”
ENDS
Notes
1
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/green-recovery-covid-spending-un-b1815153.html
2
https://data.undp.org/content/global-recovery-observatory/
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