Government mishandling economy and environment, says Green leader

Green Party leader Caroline Lucas has attacked the prime minister Gordon Brown for failing to effectively manage the economy and climate change which she claims are inextricably linked.

In a letter to the Guardian this week, Lucas said that the government should develop policies that follow the Green Party's £44bn Green New Deal plan which the organisation claims will help cut emissions while also creating new jobs to help tackle the recession.

"It's not the recession that's harming our efforts to tackle climate change. It's the fact that the government's policy on both is equally misguided," wrote Lucas. "And the solution to both problems is staring Gordon Brown in the face, or at least it would be if he would read the Green Party's 2009 manifesto It's the economy, stupid."

Policies put forward by the Greens include a commitment to energy efficiency measures for UK homes, schools and hospitals which it says should help create 80,000 jobs and plans to increase in the proportion of electricity that comes from renewable sources. According to the Green Party, raising wind energy production to the same level as Denmark by 2020 would alone create 200,000 jobs.

Lucas added that more Green MPs in the House of Commons would help with the introduction of sustainable legislation.

"A few Greens in the House of Commons would make a big difference, because someone needs to challenge the warped consensus of the cuts agenda, as well as the environmental half-heartedness of the three neoliberal parties," Lucas stated.

Late last week, Lucas visited ex-Vestas workers at their "magic roundabout" protest camp on the Isle of Wight.

"This was a massive loss for the 600 skilled workers made redundant, and it made a mockery of the UK's attempts to position itself as a leader in green energy and environmental policy. And now, as a reward for trying to defend their jobs, some of these workers are being deprived of their redundancy payouts," she said.

In August, wind turbine specialist Vestas announced that it was closing its facility on the Isle of Wight with the loss of 650 jobs, although the company later said that it may have found other roles for about 100 of the workers. Vestas said it would consider investing in new production facilities in the UK as and when more stable demand for turbines is established.

In a speech at the party's autumn conference in Hove in September, deputy Green leader Adrian Ramsay said the UK was lagging behind the rest of Europe when it comes to renewable energy production and more must be done to support not only the production of new alternative energy production, but also the demand.

"This government has promised thousands of new jobs in green industries," said Ramsay. "And yet last month it failed to prevent the closure of the UK's main wind turbine factory."

At the beginning of this month, the UK's independent Committee on Climate Change (CCC) published its first annual report, urging the government to accelerate the rollout of low carbon policies and warning that a "step change" is required in the pace of emissions reductions if the UK is to meet its goal of cutting emissions 34 per cent by 2020.