The Green New Deal goes global
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 25 May 2020
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Plans for gigantic government investments to decarbonise the world economy are gaining traction, but they may hinge on the US election results in November.
Justin Rowlatt speaks to Spain's deputy prime minister Teresa Ribera about how her government aims to make the country carbon neutral by 2050, as well as a one-trillion-euro EU green recovery plan expected to be unveiled by the European Commission this week.
Meanwhile in the US, the signs are that Democrat Joe Biden will adopt a climate change plan similar in scale to the original 1930s New Deal as the central plank of his election campaign, according to Vox journalist David Roberts.
But what about the world's biggest carbon emitter, China? Justin asks Li Shuo of Greenpeace East Asia whether President Xi will prioritise green investments as part of his country's coronavirus recovery plan, currently being fleshed out at the National People's Congress. And what difference would the US election outcome make to China's willingness to phase out fossil fuels?
Producer: Laurence Knight
(Picture: Chinese women hold a hoe and a basket and smile while standing under a solar photovoltaic panel array; Credit: Jenson/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Business Daily. I'm Justin Rowlat. Coming up, on Wednesday, the European Union is expected to unveil details of a one trillion euro green recovery plan. |
| 0:13.9 | If we do not do it, we will be taking much more risk and it could be much more costly. So I think that, yes, the recovery should |
| 0:22.3 | be green or it won't be a recovery. And in the U.S. is presidential candidate Joe Biden about |
| 0:28.3 | to make decarbonizing the U.S. economy the central plank of his bid for the presidency? |
| 0:34.2 | He knows he needs the left. He knows he needs kind of the core democratic base. |
| 0:38.3 | And he knows climate is probably the best issue to get that. So what about China? Could |
| 0:43.5 | Green Recovery go global? Stay tuned for some climate optimism here on Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:55.6 | Vital to the communities which they serve are the thousands of miles of highways, |
| 0:59.6 | constructed and improved by the works program. |
| 1:02.1 | The need for first-class highways grows constantly, |
| 1:04.8 | as the automobile and the motor truck become increasingly important in both city and rural commerce. |
| 1:09.4 | A US government film from 1937 promoting the vast |
| 1:14.2 | investment projects of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR's New Deal poured money into infrastructure |
| 1:21.8 | in an attempt to create new jobs and lift the American economy out of the Great Depression. |
| 1:28.8 | How big is the WPA Road program? |
| 1:31.3 | In its first 18 months of operation, the mileage end to end would have stretched five times around the earth. |
| 1:38.4 | On Wednesday, Europe is expected to announce details of a similarly ambitious stimulus plan, a one trillion |
| 1:46.4 | euro green new deal to help EU economies rebound from the coronavirus crisis. According to leaked |
| 1:54.0 | documents, there'll be cashed to decarbonise energy systems, insulate homes and phase out |
| 1:59.3 | petrol and diesel vehicles, and it looks set to be funded |
| 2:02.9 | in part by a tax that would penalise imports from heavy carbon-emitting countries like China. |
| 2:10.8 | Theresa Rivera is the Deputy Prime Minister of Spain and Minister for Ecological Transition. |
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