The Green Party today launched its manifesto for the 12 December election, which hinges on its Green New Deal.
This builds on the party’s previous pledges to reduce emissions, making the UK carbon neutral by 2030 and invest £100 billion a year for the next decade in climate action. This will form the basis of the premier Parliamentary Bills proposed in the party’s manifesto, along with nine others.
Jonathan Bartley, co-leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, welcomed the manifesto and called the Green New Deal the most ambitious in the world.
“Today, we’re proud to put forward a manifesto which puts us on track to remain in the European Union and make the whole country carbon neutral by 2030, while delivering social justice across Britain.
“While the other parties are trying to catch up, we’re still racing ahead, reaching new horizons.”
£12 billion to be invested in renewables
The manifesto confirms the party’s previous promise of investing £12 billion of the £100 billion a year in renewable electricity generation. This will come from public borrowing, and be on-top of £6 billion worth of private investment.
It is aiming for 70% of the country’s electricity to be generated by wind power by 2030. This will allow generation to increase to about 500TWh of electricity, nearly all of which will be renewable.
A further £2.6 billion will be invested in fitting solar panels on a million homes a year, enabling 10 million homes to generate their own renewable energy by 2030. It forms part of the party’s pledges to ensure communities and individuals benefit fairly from the energy transition.
As well as wind and rooftop solar specifically, the manifesto says the party will: “Introduce new support for solar, geothermal, tidal, hydro and other renewable energies to provide much of the remainder of the UK’s energy supply by 2030.”
It adds that the party will ban the construction of nuclear power plants, referring to the technology as “a distraction from developing renewable energy” that carries unacceptable risks and create unmanageable waste.
Fracking will be banned, “now and forever”. The party has long campaigned against the method of producing natural gas.
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