What is the Green Deal? Have your say.

Put simply, the Government is creating a financial system to enable private firms to offer consumers energy efficiency improvements to their homes, community spaces and businesses at no upfront cost, and recoup the cost (with interest) through a charge in instalments on the energy bill.

The panel will be meeting with policy experts on the Green Deal on November 3rd. We will look at how we can formulate a response to the consultation and how this will benefit young people and future generations.

You can view the government's explanation of the Green Deal here. Some organisations, such as RenewableUK, have strongly welcomed the plans. Others such as WWF have been more critical.

The full government summary of the proposals embodied in the Green Deal is available here: decc.gov.uk/ ... /1010-green-deal-summary-proposals.pdf

Please leave a comment below to give us your thoughts! We will feed them into our response to the Green Deal's consultation. Alternatively email: youthpanel@think2050.org

Panellists speak in the House of Lords

Five members of the Youth Advisory Panel were delighted to attend the Commonwealth Youth Parliament 2011 as members of the Commonwealth Diaspora. Bringing together representatives from across the Commonwealth, the Youth Parliament invited Diaspora Parliamentarians to attend their closing debate on Friday 9th September, on achieving complete carbon neutrality by 2050 in the state of 'Commonwealthland' - described as a developing nation. The debate was hosted within the Chamber of the House of Lords, only the fifth time the Chamber has been used by external groups.

The debate covered a number of standpoints, with key points made by Panel members including that now was the time to act to generate green jobs and green entrepreneurship - leading to green growth - with climate change as the catalyst for action (Elizabeth Anderson, below), and the need to ensure a thriving environment for graduates within key disciplines (Stephen Marshall, left).

The debate was hosted by Baroness D'Souza, Lords Speaker, and was attended by MPs including Conor Burns and Stephen Pound.

The motion - to reduce carbon emissions by 100% in Commonwealthland by the year 2050 was successfully carried. In reality, in the UK, the road to reducing carbon emissions by 2050 by 80% is a major challenge, but one which many of the young people of the UK are committed to seeing put in place.

Only through the decisions taken now to promote renewable energy supplies and reduction in both consumer and industry energy supply can this be achieved. But the need is real. The dangers of not tackling this far outweigh the immediate preferences of an energy intensive growth plan. Instead, we must focus on developing a sustainable, secure and low cost energy supply for all, with a fair level of energy use by all.