Sunday, July 20, 2008

Climate report calls for leaders with vision

Reuters: The world needs leaders with the vision to forge New Deal-type policies to tackle the potentially disastrous combination of climate change, high inflation and economic slowdown, a British think-tank said on Monday. "A New Green Deal", a report issued by the New Economics Foundation, uses the convergence of the credit crunch, climate change and booming food and fuel prices to make the case for a new economics for the 21st century.

Key points in the report are that every home must generate its own power, an oil legacy fund must be set up using windfall taxes on oil and gas firms to help pay for green transformation, and carbon should be priced according to its climate impact. Interest rates should be cut to help investment in green energy and transport infrastructure, and monolithic financial institutions should be broken up so the failure of one would not destabilize the economy, said the NEF, an independent group….

Official White House portrait of Franklin Roosevelt, Wikimedia Commons

No comments: