Greens call on Carwyn Jones to show leadership and urgency at Copenhagen
The Wales Green Party Leader Jake Griffiths has welcomed Carwyn Jones as Leader of the Wales Labour Party and First Minister. Carwyn Jones election as Leader comes on the eve of Copenhagen Conference Climate and The Wave Stop Climate Chaos Coalition Demonstration in London. It is looking highly unlikely that world leaders attending the conference are going to be able to agree on the policies and targets scientists say are need to tackle the threat of climate change. The Welsh Assembly and UK delegations have an opportunity to make practical commitments that set an example to the rest of the world.
Jake Griffiths, Wales Green Party Leader and Cardiff West Candidate said: "Up until now Wales and the UK government have failed to show the leadership required to develop green technologies required to tackle both climate change and the economic recession. The government admits that only 10% of the huge Government expenditure being used to try and pull us out of recession can be classified as green. This is simply not enough to make the changes needed to tackle climate change and will not provide the green jobs we need."
"Carwyn Jones has a great opportunity during the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference to start on the right footing and show the real leadership and urgency necessary by committing to the investment needed to tackle the threat of climate change and create urgently needed jobs, particularly for young people, and to give real meaning to Wales' constitutional commitment to sustainable development."
He continued: "The Green Party have long called for a Green New Deal for Wales which could create 50,000 new jobs. Forward looking countries, such as the Conference hosts Denmark, have forged ahead and become world leaders in developing green technologies, such as renewable energy, sustainable transport systems, and improving energy efficiency and in the process created 100,000 new jobs."
At the summit the Green Party is calling for:
- A much higher level of ambition. At the very least, the summit must provide clear foundations for a global deal: binding emissions reduction targets, uniform rules for measuring emissions, strong compliance mechanisms and common but differentiated responsibility - recognising different historical contributions to environmental
- Degradation, so that fairness is at the heart of any new deal.
- Reductions to be made domestically - not ‘outsourced' to poorer countries through complicated and confusing off-set schemes.
- World leaders to establish significant funding for climate mitigation and adaptation in developing countries who bear the cost in loss of life. This could prove to be a real sticking point, as the scale of financing needed for this purpose has so far been vastly underestimated.
- Governments to recognise that investing in the alternatives to polluting, finite fossil fuels, together with a shift to a more sustainable economic model, will actually benefit society and the economy as well as the environment - and therefore have the courage tobe more ambitious. Nationally this means implementing a Green New Deal with a programme of investment to insulate people's homes, get local renewable energy and public transport infrastructure projects up and running, that use local employment and benefit everyone. If you took away the need to reduce carbon emissions this investment would still improve life in communities across Britain.
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For further information contact Jake Griffiths on 07752754537 on cantongreens@hotmail.co.uk.
Image: Dave Yates
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