“Green jobs”. It’s a term we hear a lot. World leaders are heading to Cop27 to decide the fate of the planet. Is there such a thing as sustainable economic growth? If so, green jobs may be the solution — to youth unemployment, to the climate crisis, to the energy crisis and more.
Boris Johnson’s government promised the country would create two million of them to “build back greener” following the Covid pandemic. It was part of his plan for a “green industrial revolution”. But the government hasn’t made much progress on this. In fact, it still doesn’t actually know how to define what a green job is.
As Rishi Sunak takes over at No.10, and the budget is readied, The Big Issue is calling on leaders to look to tomorrow. Our Big Futures call is a request for essential movement now on the biggest issues we face – on housing, on jobs, on energy and the world around us.
We have written an open letter to the PM demanding that the government create a plan and policies to break the cycle of poverty for good. We have three demands. They are to create decent and affordable homes for all, to end the low-wage economy and invest in young people and to build a greener, sustainable future and create millions of well-paid green jobs.
The UK’s target of reaching net zero emissions by 2050 demands an enormous amount of effort and mobilisation of a huge workforce to retrofit housing stock, scale up renewable energy and build greener infrastructure.
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