Lockdown has found us in a collective moment of reimagining, but this will not last for ever: we should use it to ask what economic activity we want to rebuild, and what we could do without.
The UK needs to invest an additional £30bn a year in shovel-ready green projects to create jobs, energise the post-lockdown economy and put the country back on track to achieve its climate targets, a new cross-party commission recommends.
So this is precisely the moment to think beyond a blind pursuit of GDP, but about what kind of economic activity to bring back and prioritise, and what we could do without. Any stimulus package must be tailored to create not just any economic activity, but that which will serve society best.
The recent 96 page paper from the Environmental Justice Commission recommends ending the UK’s policy of maximising the economic extraction of oil and gas in the North Sea and elsewhere and shifting more resources to job creation in construction, manufacturing, renewables, broadband rollout and electrification of the heating and transport sectors.
They list nine policies that could accelerate the recovery from Covid-19 and put the UK on a healthier environmental track. Any bailouts for struggling firms should be conditional on reduced emissions, particularly in the airline industry.
200 CEO’s of the UK largest corporates unite in their recent letter to the Government demanding that “efforts to rescue and repair the economy in response to the current crisis can and should be aligned with the UK’s legislated target of net zero emissions by 2050 at the latest”.