Greens plan 100,000 jobs for Yorkshire

Lead Euro-candidates, Shan Oakes and Martin Hemingway will be in Sheffield on Weds.20th. 

CAMPAIGN LAUNCH: 20th March 2009  

KELHAM ISLAND MUSEUM

SHEFFIELD, S3 8RY  

10:30 (for 10:45)

 At Wednesday's campaign launch the Green Party will reveal its answer to the twin crises of climate and jobs: a Green recovery package to create over 100,000 job in Yorkshire and the Humber. 

Lead candidate Martin Hemingway will say: "Greens are pushing for common sense measures that will benefit everyone in this recession. For example, insulating all UK homes will save energy, reduce fuel bills, cut carbon emissions and create thousands of skilled jobs. 

"Creating green jobs is the most cost effective way of cutting unemployment quickly and Green MEPs are pushing governments across Europe to make the investment we need. 

"Voting for the Green Party can make a positive difference to everyone's future."  

According to the manifesto out recently, Green Party policies for the Euro-elections would create a total of over one million new UK jobs, if these policies were implemented. 

Green candidates will carry giant banknotes bearing the picture of Green Party leader Caroline Lucas MEP and the words: "We promise to pay for one million Green jobs." 

Shan Oakes, second on the European list, will talk about the need for women in Green Politics and the lead Yorkshire and Humber Green Party has taken on this. 

Green Party councillors Jillian Creasy from Sheffield , and Kevin Warnes from Bradford will also outline their achievements. Kevin Warnes is also standing for Europe this June. 

“The country - and especially Yorkshire which is one of the hardest hit regions - needs a transformation of our economy and industry,” says Martin Hemingway.

To deliver these jobs urgently, the UK economy must be put on something like a war footing, say the Greens. This is the only way to tackle the recession and the climate crisis.

Greens insist that a major national effort is essential if Britain 's economy is to be rebuilt and transformed. The business as usual policy that the government is presenting - with its failed car scrappage schemes and half-hearted, re-warmed proposals - will not be enough to make a real change.  Martin Hemingway and his colleagues will demonstrate on Wednesday how the local economy can be revived to provide jobs and reduce global warming. They will explain that public services, the finance sector, our transport infrastructure and local communities, need real and far-reaching change. 

But the 100,000 jobs the real Green New Deal will offer to Yorkshire and the Humber would only be a start, say the Greens - as kick-starting the Green industrial revolution would lead to:

* The rapid growth of low-carbon industries like wind-turbine and solar panel manufacture.

* The building of more trains, trams and buses to serve a revolution in public transport.

* Jobs-rich Green waste management systems to replace jobs-poor incineration projects.

* A revolution in UK agricultural output. 

Only a vision like this, say the Greens, can provide the antidote to the current widespread sense of dissatisfaction and disenchantment with politics and insecurity over our economic future - including the effects on the global and British economies of climate change and peak oil.

Notes  

Venue Kelham Island Museum

http://www.simt.co.uk/kelham/index.html

Alma Street

(off Corporation Street )

Sheffield , S3 8RY

Tel: 0114 2722106

Fax: 0114 2757847

1.  Kelham Island   

The launch will take place at Kelham Island in Sheffield, where an exciting micro-hydro project is soon to get off the ground. There are plans for wind, solar and biomass which will bring people into Sheffield to see the practical demonstration of renewable energy production. This shows the way that future jobs can be created in local projects while linking to Sheffield ’s industrial heritage. Jobs created will use the traditional skills' base that still exists in the region but could be lost if not put to use.  

Kelham Island Museum celebrates the great industrial heritage of Sheffield. The Kelham Island area was affected by the Great Sheffield Flood in 1864 which killed 270. In 2007 a second great flood submerged the museum and forced it to close for 15 months. Now reopened and restored it is a vital educational source for young and old in Sheffield . Kelham Island is also the proposed site for the first community micro-hydro renewable energy scheme from Sheffield Renewables, a volunteer group who are working with Sheffield City Council and the Sheffield Museums Trust.

2. Green New Deal

The Green Party has been pushing for a multi-billion pound Green New Deal since last year - only to see the government produce its own version which, as Martin will explain, is "neither Green nor, strictly speaking, a new deal" - as much of the government scheme involved cash already allocated by previous plans, and would create jobs only in many years' time.  It includes nuclear power which sustains few jobs per megawatt compared to renewables and are certainly not Green. Since the announcement, it has been shown that the government's "green stimulus" was in fact offering more cash to high-carbon than to low-carbon projects - according to studies by HSBC and NEF.  

4. Sheffield Renewables is a local organisation currently run entirely by volunteers. It makes a modest payment to shareholders, and then uses surplus income from the electricity to build further schemes or support other local projects. 

Martin Hemingway:  

Tel: 0113 274 1011

Parliamentary candidate for Leeds North West

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