UNIVERSAL basic income, a “Green Land Army” and retraining and redeploying Scotland’s North Sea workers are just three of the suggestions today being put forward to both kickstart the post-Covid economy and deliver a greener future.
Recommendations published by the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) calls on the Scottish Government to ensure that any policies aimed at recovering economically from the pandemic are also geared towards delivering a net-zero emissions economy by 2045.
READ MORE: A green recovery would show real Scottish ambition for a bold future
Citing analysis from the Scottish Trades Union Congress (STUC) that “a two-year £13 billion infrastructure stimulus could create almost 150,000 jobs and re-absorb workers who have lost employment due to the Covid-19 crisis”, CIFF is calling for the Government to shift focus onto tree planting, peatland restoration, greener, cleaner public transport infrastructure and to accelerate the deployment of renewables.
CIFF stresses it is presenting “a recovery plan to quickly reduce unemployment by creating ‘jobs of the future’ that would create warmer homes, cleaner air, safer jobs and better health”.
The recommendations have been “welcomed and endorsed” by the Scottish Greens whose co-leader, Patrick Harvie, said: “The Scottish Government must wake up to the urgency on this.
“The latest figures show Scotland has missed emissions targets for the second year in a row.
“If we are to move quickly to build back a better economy and create new jobs we need to rebuild the public sector.
“While Westminster holds many powers over the energy market, as the STUC has pointed out there is much the Scottish Government could do if it had the political will, like using the leverage of a publicly owned energy company.”
The think tank Common Weal expressed their support for “everything called for” in the CIFF report, adding that they had “additional policy work on how to make it all happen and how to pay for it”.
Common Weal director Robin McAlpine said: “It is really important the Scottish Government listens carefully to what is happening just now. A big proportion of Scotland is coalescing round the perfectly sensible idea that, if we’re going to rebuild and given that we need to shift to a green economy, we need to put these two things together and accelerate not delay the shift.
“The Scottish Government is going to have to make a choice. It can choose to keep listening to big business lobbyists and do more of what we always do, or it can listen to this growing consensus in Scotland that wants us to do something new.”
The Scottish Government said it welcomed CIFF’s report and that it aimed to create an “economy centred on the principles of wellbeing, sustainability and resilience”, adding: “We have a chance to re-imagine the Scotland around us, and to begin building a greener, fairer and more equal society and economy. Our starting point has most definitely changed but our ambitions have not.
“We remain fully committed to ending Scotland’s contribution to climate change by 2045.”
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