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Green Party launch General Election manifesto

15 April 2010

The document promotes the concept of ‘ecological debt', recognising that rich countries have already imposed billions of pounds worth of damage on poorer countries through their greenhouse gas emissions.

The Greens propose that at least 1% of UK Gross National Product is spent on aid by 2011. This would be targeted for the poorest, not involve economic policy conditions, respect gender equality and not be diverted to equipping security forces.

The party would ensure that UK companies operating abroad adhere to environmental and human rights standards and would encourage countries with which the UK works to implement core International Labour Organization standards.

In order to address the reasons funds flow out of developing countries, the Greens pledge to deliver 100% debt cancellation, to crack down on tax havens (including country by country reporting) and to implement and enforce international conventions against corruption.

The Green Party manifesto takes a clear position against free trade which, it argues, has caused greater poverty through increased instability, lower wages and little environmental protection. As an alternative, the Green Party would ensure that trade deals, whether global or with the European Union, allow developing countries to retain control over their economies and do not force through deregulation and liberalisation.

Also on the international level, the Greens would turn the World Trade Organisation into a General Agreement on Sustainable Trade, which, together with a reformed International Monetary Fund (IMF), would better reflect the interests of smaller countries. The Greens would both work for an international arms trade treaty and reduce arms sales worldwide by ending government support for arms exports.

The Greens stand for a global treaty on climate change based on a ‘Contraction and Convergence' framework in which poorer countries reduce emissions more slowly than rich countries (and in some cases increase them slightly). This would require a UK carbon dioxide emissions reduction target of 10% a year, with the aim of reducing emissions by 90 per cent from 1990 levels by 2030 and 65 per cent by 2020.

In order to fund the US$150 billion a year of finance that is required for poor countries to adapt to climate change, the Green Party favours the idea of a Robin Hood tax (also known as a financial transactions tax or Tobin tax) on the value of every financial transaction between financial institutions worldwide.

International Development excerpts from the Green Party manifesto

Compare Green Party policies to the Vote Global manifesto

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