04 January 2009
UK to get "green new deal" to create jobs

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown unveils a program of investment in new technologies and low-carbon projects and public works to ease the pain of recession by creating up to 100,000 jobs, according to The Observer.

School repairs, new rail links, hospital projects and plans to usher in a new digital age by investing in superfast broadband will be used to keep unemployment down.

The prime minister also pledged action within weeks to kickstart bank lending in an attempt to save existing jobs.

He promises to use public money not only to create short-term jobs, but also to build a low-carbon economy for the future.

The plans will be used to tackle climate change, by means of investments in eco-friendly projects such as electric cars and wind and wave power that would also create jobs, Brown told The Observer.

Mr. Brown's plans will be seen as a modern reworking of Roosevelt's New Deal - a massive program of public works, such as dams and roads, to help America recover from the Great Depression.

Brown even claimed his green plans would be bigger than Barack Obama's planned multi-billion-dollar "Green New Deal", relative to the size of Britain's economy.

Source and more information:

The Guardian/The Observer, full article

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