Greenpeace has "high hopes" about Ed Miliband's ability to hold the coalition to account, while Friends of the Earth describe as Labour's greenest ever leader.
There are high hopes from the climate movement that the new Labour leader will make his party greener and better scrutinise David Cameron’s claim to lead ‘the greenest government ever’.
Reacting to Ed Miliband’s victory on Saturday, the head of Greenpeace John Sauven told the BBC:
“We have high hopes that the man who brought an end to the era of coal-fired power stations with unlimited emissions will be the right man to hold Cameron’s ‘greenest government ever’ to their promises.”
While this morning, Friends of the Earth’s director Andy Stkins described Ed Miliband as “the greenest leader of the Labour Party to date”.
So far the coalition have cut clean energy budgets and environmental watchdogs, they’ve supported new deep sea oil drilling, and they’ve already rolled back on key green pledges on illegal logging and support for green energy pioneers, as well as putting on hold promised new regulations to clean up power stations. There has even been speculation that the Department of Energy and Climate Change could be shut down altogether, crippled by the anticipated scale of the cuts to its budgets.
It’s no wonder therefore that a Yougov poll published today on Liberal Democrat Voice shows that half of Lib Dem members think that the coalition should be making protection of the environment more of a priority. Equally, three-quarters want clean energy budgets protected or increased, and the majority of Lib Dems favour a moratorium on deep sea oil drilling until lessons have been learned from the BP spill.
Widely applauded for his efforts in Copenhagen and in changing the last government’s attitude to green issues, Labour’s new leader could very well make a pitch to outflank the coalition in this area.
During his campaign Ed Miliband made clear that as leader he would advocate for a more interventionist green industrial strategy, and it is certain Labour’s new leader will, for example, put pressure on the coalition to adequately finance the new green investment bank, protect key clean energy budgets, and lobby for the UK to take a pro-active role in global climate talks.
27 Responses to “High hopes ‘Green Ed’ will put climate change back up agenda”
Tim
Ed Miliband talked a good talk ahead of Copenhagen, but his policies, if implemented, would have ensured environmental catastrophe – as Greenpeace showed at the time. But nevertheless some environmentalists were fooled by him.
Now Ed Miliband talks the talk on the economy. We await his policies. Nevertheless I am sure that Joss Garman, you have been fooled
The approach of progressives should be to open space on the left that he can move in to – not to buy in to the brand and become impotent
I spotted a good blog on Miliband the younger here –
http://aleddilwynfisher.wordpress.com/2010/09/26/o-brother-where-art-thou-how-to-feel-about-ed/
Joss Garman
@ Tim – I don’t disagree that the last government had a completely incoherent approach to climate change – the third runway offering a case in point.
Equally, I dont disagree that the approach of progressive should be to open space. Thats precisely why the climate movement and groups like Plane Stupid and Greenpeace are so important.
But thats not to say we should not recognise that Ed M was the man who, for example, oversaw the low carbon transition plan and who opposed the Heathrow expansion plan. Thats why there is hope amongst the climate movement about his leadership.
But we shall see.
maria arbiter
RT @shamikdas: Forget all the "Red Ed" bollocks – it's all about "Green Ed" http://bit.ly/bsMUuX
thegreengod
High hopes 'Green Ed' will put climate change back up agenda …: Widely applauded for his efforts in Copenhagen a… http://bit.ly/dc8u8D
Mr. Sensible
I am hopefull too, but you rightly refer to the Third Runway, Joss.
That was a bad idea by the last government and getting rid of it is 1 of the very few good things the Con Dems have done.