Corbyn pledges ‘radical’ climate change targets but stops short of 2030

Jeremy Corbyn has pledged that Labour is “fully signed up” to the Green New Deal but did not confirm the 2030 net-zero emissions target backed by his party’s annual conference last month.

In a speech to party members in Nottingham today (10 October), the Labour leader said that his government would update the Climate Change Act with the “most ambitious feasible” net-zero deadline if it is elected to power.

After thanking the school climate strikers and Extinction Rebellion campaign for pushing global warming to the top of the agenda, he said: “The government’s target of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 is too late and the Tories are doing little to meet it – in fact investment in clean energy has fallen for three years running.

“A Labour government is fully signed up to a Green New Deal. We are already working closely with trade unions and the scientific community to develop the most radical climate targets in the world.”

But the Labour leader did not spell out how rapidly his government would bring forward the net-zero target from the current 2050 date, which was unanimously endorsed by parliament during the summer.

Labour’s conference voted in a motion backing the Green New Deal that 2030 should be the new date for decarbonising the UK.

Corbyn, who visited a wind farm turbine plant in Southampton yesterday, said: “In government, we will entrench this into law by updating the Climate Change Act with the most ambitious feasible net-zero deadline consistent with a just transition for workers.

“The urgent need to reduce our emissions is the starting point for the Green Industrial Revolution that we will unleash in every part of the country, creating hundreds of thousands of good, skilled jobs across Britain and building the cleaner, healthier, more rewarding economy of the future.”

Corbyn also reiterated Labour’s commitments to take a 51 per cent stake in new offshore windfarms, ban fracking, roll out a street-by-street insulation programme, fit solar panels on 1.75m roofs, double large-scale solar, remove barriers to onshore wind and ensure all new homes are built to the zero carbon standard.

The Labour leader used his speech, which is part of a series of campaign stops while parliament is prorogued in the run up to next week’s Queen’s Speech, to confirm that the opposition wants to fight a general election but only when the government has ruled out a No Deal Brexit.