Thread by @powellds

Great to speak at @energyleeds @PriestleyCentre event on challenges posed by net zero. I focused on 4: (thread)

1) we have no national mandate for disruptive change. need a popular plan that we all feel we own. Which is where a #GreenNewDeal comes in. neweconomics.org/campaigns/gree…

2) we have a terrible legacy on industrial just transition. Need to empower affected places and workers to design own green futures. Essential for justice and the raw politics of it all. neweconomics.org/2018/11/workin…

3) we have institutions like Treasury that don’t take climate seriously. Economic policy won’t respond to the climate emergency until responding to the climate emergency is the Treasury’s actual written down job. opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocra…

4) we obsess about technical measures and spend vastly less time thinking about how to trigger an exponential cultural response. Irrespective of target dates we don’t know how to mobilise cast action on this scale outside of a war. neweconomics.org/2019/07/climat…

5) oh yeah and Brexit. Not the thing itself per se but the all conquering all crushing attention it is requiring of policy makers at a time of astounding small windows for the most meaningful climate action.

6) for all that I’m curiously optimistic. There is *hope* in the movement for the first time in a decade. There is a determination and a righteous optimism that is infusing @ExtinctionR & school strikers and beyond. Hope is an essential factor in exponentialism. (Ends)