‘We need a global Green New Deal’ – inequality and climate change two sides of the same coin, Cop26 hears

by Bethany Rielly in Glasgow 
Nov.8, 2021

TAXING the rich is one of the main tools to saving the planet, politicians calling for a green new deal declared at a counter summit to Cop26 in Glasgow yesterday.

French MEP Manon Aubry, who is a member of the Global Alliance for a Green New Deal, accused political leaders of being too afraid to tackle the issue of tax justice.

“The EU thinks it will save the planet with austerity and trade deals but inequality and climate change are two sides of the same coin,” she said.

The MEP said that the richest 1 per cent are responsible for double the pollution emitted by half of the poorest half of humanity, should be the one’s to pay for climate change.

“Taxing the rich is one of the main tools to save the planet,” she declared.

“Because the rich are both the ones that are polluting the most but also the ones that have the means and the money to pay for it.”

Explaining the green new deal, Green MP Caroline Lucas said that it would require more than replacing “our existing lifestyles with versions that are somehow powered by renewables — it means transforming the way we live.

“We need to invest in universal basic services so that everyone’s needs are met,” she continued.

“A transformation in the UK cannot be built on the extraction of resources and exploitation of people elsewhere.

“More than anything we need to listen to and learn from indigenous people across the global south. It involves collaboration on an unprecedented scale.”

Organisers say that the four-day people’s summit will bring together communities and movements which it believes have been “sidelined” during the official climate summit down the road.

Brazilian congresswoman Joenia Wapichana, the country’s first indigenous politician told the summit: “Indigenous people need to be at the forefront of conversations on climate change.

“We need to be in constant dialogue. That’s the only way in which we implement policies for a new economy, with different values, operating within planetary boundaries to ensure social and climate justice.”

“We need to disrupt the political system, we need to force it to deliver a green new deal,” Green New Deal Rising campaigner Fatima Ibrahim, who last week confronted Chancellor Rishi Sunak over his climate commitments outside the Cop26 centre, said

Published at morningstaronline.co.uk

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