The evolution of the UK’s Green New Deal: “Green Industrial Revolution,” “Building Back Better,” and beyond

Bailey, Daniel and Hofferberth, Elena (2023) The evolution of the UK’s Green New Deal: “Green Industrial Revolution,” “Building Back Better,” and beyond. In: Routledge Handbook on the Green New Deal. Routledge International Handbooks . Routledge, London, pp. 315-330. ISBN 9780367628048 (hardback); 9781003110880 (ebook)

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Abstract

This chapter traces the political and economic development of the UK’s version of the Green New Deal from its conception shortly before the Global Financial Crash of 2008 to the calls to Build Back Better during the COVID-19 pandemic, and outlines the ways in which its development has been shaped by the numerous dysfunctions and pathologies of contemporary British capitalism. We examine the increasingly vital need for a Green New Deal to include a “new social contract” today in the context of the inequalities exposed and exacerbated by the pandemic, as well as incorporate an increasingly radical set of policies designed to instigate systemic economic change. This, however, cuts against the grain of contemporary British politics. The response of the Conservative government and the Bank of England to the pandemic-induced economic downturn has been to mobilize public resources in aid of preserving or “locking in” the pre-existing economic model rather than seizing the opportunity to invest in structural transformation, regardless of the calamitous social and ecological outcomes pertaining to the status quo. Given the sizeable public outlay in the pandemic and current fears of inflation, the prospects of the British state orchestrating systemic changes that meet decarbonization targets have been greatly diminished as a result of recent crisis management policies.