Youth climate activists are calling on Labour to be bolder or risk losing the support of a generation of young voters at the next election.
Activists from Green New Deal Rising, which has doorstepped dozens of politicians over the past 18 months, are calling for more urgent action on the climate emergency, and want Labour to commit to a “decade of green new deal action”.
Their demands include an expansion of public ownership to include rail, water and energy, a new wealth tax, a green jobs guarantee alongside a living income, a new National Nature Service and an expanded, permanent windfall tax on oil and gas companies.
Fatima Ibrahim, co-executive director of Green New Deal Rising, said if the Labour party wanted young people to vote for “the ‘greener, fairer future’ it’s promising, it must show us how”.
“They must commit to creating fairness through expanding publicly owned services, taxing exorbitant wealth and corporations to deliver plentiful green jobs and a living income for all,” said Ibrahim. “From now until the election, we are going to be taking every chance we can to demand bold action from the Labour party, and secure a vision we can believe in.”
Labour says tackling the climate crisis is at the heart of its policy agenda, pointing out it is one of the party’s five missions set out by its leader, Keir Starmer, last month. The party has already committed to a range of climate policies including decarbonising electricity production by 2030, a halt to any new oil and gas licences in the North Sea and the creation of a national publicly owned energy company, GB Energy, run on clean UK power.
But Tim Hickish, an organiser with Green New Deal Rising, said that while these moves were welcome, the party had to go further. “We want to see ourselves in the vision politicians are setting out and we want a reason to vote in the next election for a party that truly addresses our concerns and stands up for us as our generation faces up to the future challenges we will have to tackle. We want to know, Labour: are you on our side or are you on the side of the billionaires and fossil fuel giants?”
Green New Deal Rising, which claimed some credit for persuading Labour to adopt its current set of environmental policies, has commissioned polling that shows 75% of those who voted for Labour in the last election want to see more action on the climate crisis.
Its call for the party to go further has won widespread support from other youth and climate groups, including the UK Youth Climate Coalition and the National Union of Students (NUS).
“Our generation has only known perpetual crises, and we are staring in the face of a terrifying future of greater inequality and runaway climate change,” said Sarah McArthur, an organiser with the UK Youth Climate Coalition. “The generations-long promise of a better tomorrow has been broken by our leaders, and we refuse to sit aside and wait to inherit an unequal world ravaged by climate disaster. We are finding hope by organising together to define our collective future.”
Ed Miliband, Labour’s shadow climate change secretary, said the party would “transform Britain” with its “green prosperity plan”, creating good jobs and decarbonising the economy.
“From becoming the first major economy in the world to reach a clean power system by 2030, to establishing GB Energy, our publicly owned energy company, to delivering warm homes upgrades to every home that needs it, Labour has put bold climate action front and centre of our mission to change Britain for good,” he said.
