British lawmaker says Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal has given ‘hope and energy’ to UK effort

A British lawmaker says that the Green New Deal advocated by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and other progressives has given “hope and energy” to a similar movement in the United Kingdom.

Earlier this week, British lawmakers introduced their own “Green New Deal” in Parliament, the same week that the U.S. Senate blocked the Green New Deal in a 57-0 vote.

{mosads}Green Party politician Caroline Lucas told CBS News that though their movement has been years in the making, the publicity around the Green New Deal in the U.S. has helped fuel excitement across the pond.

“I’d really love to underline just how much hope and energy and inspiration what’s happened in the U.S. has given our movement here,” Lucas said. “It has really, I think, excited people to see a banner under which they can bring together so many of their concerns.”

Lucas was a founding member of the U.K.’s Green New Deal Group more than a decade ago, a movement dedicated to pushing for “a massive investment in green infrastructure” in response to the global economic crisis, according to CBS News.

Like Ocasio-Cortez’s bill, the proposed Green New Deal in the U.K. was named for former President Franklin Roosevelt’s plan to revive the economy and end the Great Depression.

“We didn’t want the bridges and roads and so forth of the 1930s,” Lucas told CBS News. “But what we did want was … a massive investment in green infrastructure so that we could use this crisis also as an opportunity in terms of being able to get hundreds of thousands of people back into jobs.”

The legislation introduced this week is titled the “Decarbonisation and Economic Strategy Bill.” It calls for the country’s economy and industry to transition to low- and zero-carbon in an effort to improve environmental quality and eradicate inequality.

The legislation introduced in the U.K. is a so-called private member’s bill, a measure that rarely becomes law but can help bring attention to causes and influence other legislation.

In the U.S., Democrats are moving on from the Green New Deal, though they will continue to work toward legislation addressing climate change.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) forced a vote on the Green New Deal this week in order to test Democrats’ unity on the topic. The legislation failed to clear a procedural hurdle, as 43 Democrats voted present to avoid taking a formal position. The proposed legislation has drawn backlash from Republicans and moderate Democrats who say its goals are too ambitious.