Yorkshire Post

UK must focus on greener jobs

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From: Chas Ball, Beaumont Park Road, Huddersfie­ld.

DESPITE a timely reminder last week from the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) – the Government’s statutory adviser – that we have limited time to address the climate emergency, where is the response from our two largest political parties?

We need a new approach to our jobs and climate crises, yet there are worrying signs of a ‘business as usual’ approach to economic growth.

Nowhere in Shadow Minister Rachel Reeves’ essay (The Yorkshire Post, July 4) did she refer to the need to innovate in the economy by stimulatin­g new green jobs, for example in housing or energy.

In contrast, the interview with Bill Adams of the regional TUC in the same edition identified how “Yorkshire’s recovery needs to be based on a transition to a lowcarbon economy”.

The net zero economy will require a net zero workforce, according to the CCC report. This will include everything from installing low-carbon boilers and home insulation to improving broadband networks (for more home-working) and creating jobs in burgeoning industries such as offshore wind.

Shadow Chancellor Anneliese Dodds is similarly stuck in the past by assuming we can ‘grow our way out of this crisis’. In the face of climate and environmen­tal emergencie­s, this approach is economical­ly illiterate. Strategies to cut emissions offer massive new job opportunit­ies and improvemen­ts to our quality of life.

The CCC report includes a national plan for insulating the UK’s draughty homes, which would create thousands of new green jobs – and we know how to do it from past experience in Yorkshire!

A decade ago, Kirklees Warm Zone showed how the benefits of an insulation project go beyond the carbon savings into jobs created, increased economic activity, reduced fuel poverty and improved housing conditions which in turn should translate into improved health and reduced costs to the NHS. My real worry is that the Chancellor will not step to the challenge of the climate crisis, despite the detailed plans offered by the CCC report. But if not now, when?

From: Bill Tetlow, Bedale.

WHETHER or not Gordon Brown saved us from bankruptcy in 2008 is highly questionab­le (Jayne Dowle, The Yorkshire Post,

July 6). What is not is that his profligacy up until that point had allowed the United Kingdom’s economy to become the weakest in Europe to face the trauma of the world financial crisis.

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