Please take a moment to send this letter to Tracey Brabin. It has been written and endorsed by a range of groups including trade union groups, and has a real chance of making a difference as part of a concerted campaign for a just transition across West Yorkshire (and beyond).
In the run up to the West Yorkshire Mayoral elections, Tracy Brabin pledged to adopt a robust and ambitious Climate Action Plan for West Yorkshire.
Last year, West Yorkshire Combined Authority published its Carbon Emissions Reduction Pathway report which set out what needs to be achieved to move towards its commitment to achieving net zero by 2038.
This includes:
· Providing the infrastructure to support the rapid growth of electric vehicles
· Significant increases in walking and cycling and public transport
· Retrofitting 680,000 homes to EPC level C
· Installing 140 heat pumps every day for 10 years
· Restoring 100% of peatland in West Yorkshire
· Planting 170 hectares of new woodland
· Installing 43MW of solar and wind generation each year
This is ambitious – but that ambition will not be met unless we have a skilled workforce geared up to deliver this scale of transformative change.
Friends of the Earth’s recent Emergency Plan for Young People identified the potential for nearly 12000 green apprenticeships in West Yorkshire over the next three years.
Will you join us in asking Tracy Brabin to set up a West Yorkshire Green Jobs Task Force?
This task force would bring together business organisations, trade unions, education providers, local authorities and environmental groups to identify skills gaps in West Yorkshire and ways in which these gaps can be met through skills provision and green apprenticeships along with reskilling of workers in high carbon industry.