A Green New Deal for Leeds City Region

GALBA has produced this report on the potential for job creation in a sustainable economy: A Green New Deal for Leeds City Region - GALBA's Vision for a Sustainable Local Economy.

Our starting point for this report is to accept four facts:

1. the climate crisis is a real and present danger
2. to prevent its worst effects, we must cut emissions in half by 2030
3. there is no realistic prospect of cutting aviation emissions in half by 2030
4. people need secure and meaningful work

So we must – and we can – change our local economy to create decent jobs and a safer future for everyone. Expanding aviation is the wrong way forward. There is a better way.

You can download the full report here.

This report also sets out our concerns about the claims made by Leeds Bradford Airport around job creation, which do not properly take into account:

• the effect of increasing automation at airports around the world
• the experience of other airport expansions where job creation was vastly over-exaggerated

LBA’s now abandoned 2020 planning application would have increased emissions to 1,227kt CO2e per year. That’s larger than the entire carbon budget for the whole of the district of Leeds from 2030 onwards, while delivering, at best, less than 1,500 direct new jobs.

The airports’s claim of wider economic benefits is out of date: it does not take take into account the changes to business travel brought about by technology or the fact that the continued growth of outbound tourism takes money out of the country and creates an economic deficit.

We don’t pretend to have all the answers. But we do know the government should address the regressive taxation system that gives tax breaks to aviation. On a per passenger basis, this is worth £94 million to LBA every year – but overwhelmingly benefits better-off frequent flyers.

GALBA has organized meetings with local Trade Unions to share some details of our report and to demonstrate that a campaign against airport expansion can also be a campaign for good quality jobs and greater job security.

Yorkshire urgently needs an investment strategy that helps ordinary people make the transition to good, secure jobs that tackle the climate emergency, rather than make it worse.

You can download the full report which sets out our greener vision, with an Exec Summary at the start.

And a full recording of our Green New Deal Report launch is here.

Be part of our campaign by sharing the issues and the vision.