triple crunch

Financial meltdown, soaring food and energy bills, high oil prices, accelerating climate change. The global economy faces a ‘triple crunch’ which could develop into a perfect storm to rival or surpass the Great Depression. Time is short. There could be only 100 months or less from August 2008 to take meaningful action on climate change. Current responses are not getting to the root of the problem. When politicians and the market fail us, and the world slips further into financial and environmental freefall, a panel of experts brought together by nef and the Guardian asked: do we need a Green New Deal?

nef's Policy Director and Green New Deal co-author Andrew Simms kick-started a series of comment pieces about the Triple Crunch. You can read Andrew's article and follow the discussion below.

Recent articles in the series:

Rip it up and start again
Ann Pettifor: A complete overhaul of the banking system and swingeing cuts in interest rates are the only way we will escape this mess.
 
A return to ethical investment
Colin Hines: They've been out of fashion for a while, but local authority bonds benefit the economy and the planet.

Making the havens open
Richard Murphy: The current financial crisis highlights the need to steer good business away from the black hole of tax haven abuse.
Regulation is the only option
Caroline Lucas: A Green New Deal will make the financial market serve the state.

Independence from the street up
Jeremy Leggett: Clean technologies can displace fossil fuels and make the UK energy independent. All we need is a bit of imagination.

Bring on the carbon army
Tony Juniper: Climate change and the economic crisis are human history's biggest challenges. But spending now to build a low-carbon economy would create thousands of green-collar jobs.

London's achilles heel
Rosie Boycott: The capital imports 80% of its food and is vulnerable to shortages. But with political will, it has the potential to feed itself.

Wobbling foundations
Adam Sampson: The current housing crisis is a failure beyond government fixing, but it can break the link between home ownership and wealth acquisition.

A world of inequality
Jayati Ghosh: As economies slow down, people in the developing world who did not gain from the boom will face deteriorating conditions.
 
Democratise the IMF, now
David Woodward: Like turkeys that wouldn't vote for Christmas, rich countries use the fund to promote their own interests while the rest suffer.

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