F E AT U R E By Ben Brown
How green is our recovery? We have only a few years remaining to turn the tide on global climate change and biodiversity loss. It’s vital that our economic recovery from COVID-19 addresses this, by investing in green, nature-based infrastructure. In September, the LI published Greener Recovery.
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Office of National Statistics, Monthly GDP figures, April-June 2020: https://www. ons.gov.uk/economy/ grossdomestic productgdp/articles/ coronavirusandthe impactonoutputinthe ukeconomy/june2020 1
he UK is now officially in its worst ever recession on record. GDP shrank 20.4% in April alone – more than twenty times the largest monthly drop during the Great Recession in 2008 – and is on track for its biggest decline in 100 years.1 This isn’t confined to the UK. Governments around the world are scrambling to put recovery plans in place to bounce back from the COVID-19 pandemic, with somewhere around $10 trillion of stimulus packages pledged so far. The UK Government announced around £160 billion in spending at its unprecedented Summer Statement, and promised further announcements later in the autumn. In spite of the pandemic’s devastating economic consequences, though, it’s had a hugely positive effect on overall CO2 emissions. And just as economies begin to once again pick up pace, emissions are starting to rebound too. Government stimulus packages can either seek to address this, or they can worsen it. Though stimulus tends to be ‘value neutral’ about the types of businesses it supports, it has in the past often favoured high-carbon sectors. In the UK, industries such as aviation,
LI Policy Paper | August 2020
GREENER RECOVERY
Delivering a sustainable recovery from COVID-19 How investing in better places can support the UK’s recovery from Coronavirus whilst tackling climate change
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